It is wicked, say they, to bring so many children into the world that cannot be well taken care of; “I really have not the strength to take care of any more;” and they go on in their sinful practice until health is destroyed or life sacrificed. “I do not think that women should give their lives to bearing children, and have no time for mental improvement,” they say again, while they spend a great part of their time in devising means to prevent conception, or in worry, lest they may not succeed, while the little fragment of time and strength is given to the pursuit of “culture,” and at the age, when, had they borne their children and been joyful in training them, they would have been vigorous and strong for years of mental work and wide culture. At this very time because of what they have done they are pale broken-down women, with no strength or ambition left for nobler pursuits than groaning over their ill-health or seeking alleviation for their sufferings. But their sin does not stop with themselves, but is written legibly upon the lives of the children, who, in spite of their earnest endeavor to the contrary, have stemmed the tide of evil, and come to maturity of term, if not of vigor. A late writer in a Christian journal has said, “There are thousands of miserable objects in our insane asylums, hospitals, yea, in our jails, who may honestly complain, ‘from our mothers cometh our misery.’ The attempt to commit prenatal murder is frightfully common—as all women and physicians know—and where it does not kill, malformations, idiocy, and distorted moral powers are too often the results. For no one ever breaks into ‘the house of life,’ and is innocent or unpunished. Prenatal murder and self-murder walk hand in hand, crying to heaven as loudly as did the blood of Abel. And should these women personally seem to escape, yet there will come a day when God will ask them one terrible question, ‘Where are the children that I gave you?’” Again they say, “There is no harm until there is life.” The moment conception takes place, that moment there is life; and whether the crime be committed in six hours, six weeks or six months, the sin is in all cases of equal enormity. Murder is in the intent, not in the act alone. When you intend to rid yourself of the little life if possible, you have committed murder as surely as if the murdered child lay dead in your arms, or it may chance live to denounce you with its disinherited life, if not with its words.