Those principles, surely, are two. The first is that in a State we are
members one of another, and that those who need help must be helped.
This will be indignantly repudiated by a stern school of thought, but
what if it applies, everywhere, always and above all, to children? They
are members of the community who need help and they must be helped. The
second principle is indeed only a special case of the first. It is that
if the State is to continue, it must rear children.
We take it then, first, that the moral and social law is perfectly final
as to the right of every child to existence. There are no principles of
national welfare which can divorce us from the simple truth that we must
regard every human individual as sacred from the moment of its coming
into existence--and that is a long time before birth. A familiar medical
dogma is, "Keep everything alive." There may be exceptions to it, but it
is dangerous to discuss them with the unprepared. The only safe
principle is to maintain, as long as possible, the life of all--the
centenarian or the embryo conceived since the sun set. At times the
State deliberately takes life on behalf of life. The sentence of
execution passed upon the murderer may be warrantably passed by the
State of the future or its officers upon a monstrous birth, a baby
riddled with congenital syphilis or some such horrible fruit of our
present carelessness and wickedness in such matters.
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