NATION’S EXISTENCE IMPERILLED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 122, 18 February 1944, Page 6

NATION’S EXISTENCE IMPERILLED

Chief Justice Comments On

Crime Of Abortion WOMAN FOUND GUILTY ON FOUR COUNTS Comment that the practice of abortion was the concomitant of hedonism and must inevitably lead to the nation’s moral decadence and degeneration was made by the Chief Justice (Sir' Michael Myers), when summing up yesterday ia the Supreme Court, Wellington, at the conclusion of the evidence in the case ill which Florence May Radcliffe, aged 40, was being tried on six charges of unlawfully using an instrument and one charge of attempting to use an instrument unlawfully. She was found guilty on four counts and remanded till Mou; day for sentence, the trial having lasted four days. The jury were sworn, as he was, said his Honour, addressing them before they retired, to do justice and to give a verdict according to the evidence, and nothing else. They were there as honest, conscientious citizens of common sense with some wmrldly knowledge and experience of men and women and affairs. They had to apply that knowledge and experience to some extent, at all events to the evidence they had heard in this case. They were there to do their duty without fear or favour, with neither illwill nor good will, but to act as honest consicentious men on the evidence. The offences alleged were serious. They had heard it said during the course of the case that it was an important one. So it was—extremely important—because the practice of abortion was calculated to prejudice and undermine the very life of the nation.

The Crown suggested, said his Honout; that the premises of accused were nothing more or less than an abortion shop, with a tariff of £l5 a time, but that less was accepted where the customer —if he might use the word—had not £l5. What was the use, continued his Honour, of talking of the necessity of increasing the population of the country if they shut their eyes and permitted wholesale destruction of potential human lives? What, it might be asked, was the use of sending all thejr best young men to risk, and in large nfimbers to lose their lives to save the nation if the people deliberately imperilled the nation’s very existence by practising the wholesale destruction of potential life, thus inviting its own destruction, within a measurable period. That was the importance of the case.

His Honour said the more important was the case, the more serious were the consequences of conviction, and the more necessary and important it was for the case to be proved satisfactorily before conviction. He had stressed the importance of the public interest merely to point out that on the one hand nothing must be allowed to prejudice accused, and. on the other hand, they must disregard all irrelevant matters and decide the ease on the evidence alone. Observations had been made from time to time, said his Honour, that defendants in such cases should not be convicted while the ether parties to the offence went unpunished. If that suggestion were accepted, there never would be a conviction for this abominable class of crime, because in the nature of things it was practically impossible to prove without the evidence of some person or persons actively concerned in it. It would be indecent for the Crown to prosecute persons of whose evidence it made use. It might be suggested that an abortionist could not carry on his or her sordid and abominable tiade unless people came to have miscarriages procured. That was perfectly true, but by the same reasoning, if there was no abortionist, there would be —should he say —no customers —though the abortionists would prefer the mode in vogue and call them clients or patients. “Get rid of the abortionist, and I. venture to suggest that you will get rid of a large percentage of the abortions,” said his Honour. • Counsel’s addresses and the Chief Justice’s summing tin occupied the whole day. The jury retired at 4.56 p.m., and returned with their verdict at 7.40 p.m. Accused was found guilty on the first three counts, riot guilty on the fourth, guilty on the fifth, and not guilty on the remaining two, the last of which was the charge of attempting to use an instrument unlawfully. The Crown Prosecutor. Mr. VV. H. Cunningham, conducted the case for the police, and Mr. R. R Scott appeared for accused. _