To come nearer home, Boeltius tells us, that, "in old times when a Scot
was affected with any hereditary disease their sons were emasculated,
their daughters banished, and if any female affected with such disease
were pregnant, she was to be burned alive."
Aristotle declared (Politics Book II, p. 40) that "neglect of this
subject is a never failing cause of poverty, and poverty is the parent
of revolution and crime," and he advocated habitual abortion as one
remedy against over-population. The combined wisdom of the Greeks found
no better method of keeping population well within the limits of the
State's power to support its members than abortion, and the exposure of
infants.
Since Aristotle's time abortion has been largely practised by civilized
nations. Mutilation and infibulation of females have been practised by
savages with the same end in view, while vasectomy, orchotomy, and
ovariotomy, have had their avowed advocates in our own time.
The purpose of all these measures was to limit population with little or
no distinction as to fitness to survive. The Spartans in ancient times,
and many social reformers of to-day have discussed and advocated the
artificial limitation of the unfit. The exposure of defective infants
was the Spartan method of preserving the physical and mental stature of
the race.
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