Atrocious! No
human creature with any heart at all could help feeling indignant at
such a state of things. Not only is the girl to bring a child into the
world, a thing in itself surely hard enough, but she is to be treated
as a criminal for that very fact. I will venture to say that it was
well for the unfortunate girl now accused before the court that her
child was born by accident when she fell into the water, and drowned.
Well for herself and for the child. As long as society maintains its
present attitude, an unmarried mother should be counted guiltless even
if she does kill her child."
Here a slight murmur was heard from the presiding justice.
"Or at any rate, her punishment should be merely nominal," said Fru
Heyerdahl. "We are all agreed, of course," she went on, "that infant
life should be preserved, but is that to mean that no law of simple
humanity is to apply to the unfortunate mother? Think, consider
what she has been through during all the period of pregnancy, what
suffering she has endured in striving to hide her condition, and all
the time never knowing where to turn for herself and the child when it
comes.
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