It has recently been advocated that abortion should no longer be regarded as a punishable offence. Others are satisfied with the proposal that the mother should be left unpunished. These proposals are supported by the following arguments. The existing law is altogether inefficient, for it attacks not the act in itself, but merely the poverty of the doer and the clumsiness of the act. The punishment of abortion is especially unjust: (_a_) when the act of intercourse has been effected against the will of the woman who has been impregnated--for example, in case of rape; (_b_) when abortion is indicated on special grounds of health--for example, when the health or life of the mother is seriously threatened by pregnancy or parturition, and there is no doubt that the life of the mother is more valuable than that of the child; (_c_) when there is no doubt that the child, if born at full term, would be weakly, diseased, useless, or even injurious to society--for example, when a person suffering from severe insanity or chronic alcoholism impregnates a woman, or when an insane, epileptic, or imbecile woman becomes pregnant. (As to certain other arguments which are put forward, such as that everyone has a perfect right to the disposal of his own body, and that for this reason the prospective mother can deal with the fruit of her womb precisely as she pleases; or that, according to the biogenetic law, the embryo is not a human being, but a lower animal--no importance need be attached to them. They are altogether superfluous.) As yet there is no country in which these views have been incorporated in legislation, but the time cannot be far distant in which this will take place. Of course, when this happens, abortion, if effected by a married woman, without sufficient cause, and without the consent of her husband, would have to be regarded as an adequate ground for divorce.