Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
4. SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD.--If it is a sin to take away the life even
of an enemy; if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries to heaven
for vengeance; in what language can we characterize the double guilt
of those whose souls are stained with the innocent blood of their own
unborn, unregenerated offspring?
5. THE GREATNESS OF THE CRIME.--The murder of an infant before its
birth, is, in the sight of God and the law, as great a crime as the
killing of a child after birth.
6. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY.--Every State of the Union has made this
offense one of the most serious crimes. The law has no mercy for the
offenders that violate the sacred law of human life. It is murder of
the most cowardly character and woe to him who brings this curse upon
his head, to haunt him all the days of his or her life, and to curse
him at the day of his death.
7. THE PRODUCT OF LUST.--Lust pure and simple. The only difference
between a marriage of this character and prostitution is, that
society, rotten to its heart, pulpits afraid to cry aloud against
crime and vice, and the church conformed to the world, have made such
a profanation of marriage respectable. To put it in other words, when
two people determine to live together as husband and wife, and evade
the consequences and responsibilities of marriage, they are simply
engaged in prostitution without the infamy which attaches to that vice
and crime.
8. OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF ALL LAW.--The violation of all law, both
natural and revealed, is the cool and villainous contract by which
people entering into the marital relation engage in defiance of the
laws of God and the laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be
unencumbered with a family of children. "Disguise the matter as you
will," says Dr. Pomeroy, "yet the fact remains that the first and
specific object of marriage is the rearing of a family." "Be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth," is God's first word to Adam
after his creation.
9. THE NATIONAL SIN.--The prevention of offspring is preeminently the
sin of America. It is fast becoming the national sin of America,
and if it is not checked, it will sooner or later be an irremediable
calamity. The sin has its roots in a low and perverted idea of
marriage, and is fostered by false standards of modesty.
10. THE SIN OF HEROD.--Do these same white-walled sepulchres of
hell know that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the
slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the
crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing
these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that
it is undermining their health, and their constitution, and that their
destiny, if persisted in, is a premature grave just as sure as the
sun rises in the heavens? Let all beware and let the first and only
purpose be, to live a life guiltless before God and man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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