REVIEWS

Date01 May 1959
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1959.tb00543.x
Published date01 May 1959
REVIEWS
THE
SANCTITY
OF
LIFE
AND
TEE
CRIMINAL
LAW.
By
GLANVILLE
WILLIAMS. [London: Faber and Faber, Ltd.
1958.
819
pp.
80s.
net.]
‘‘
TIIO~J
shalt not kill
says the sixth Commandment; God has given life to man,
therefore it
is
for Him, in the traditional Christian view, and for Him alone,
to take it away again. The State, for its own purposes, agrees in holding
life sacrosanct. Since it is the first aim of organised society to safeguard
the security and integrity of human life, an): wilful interference with its
natural course tends to be visited with the full rigour of the law. Murder is
the crime of crimes.
Yet there are certain borderline categories where it can be argued that,
SO
far from endangering public security and peace, deliberate manipulation of the
natural progress of man from birth to death would actually benefit the physical
and mental health and even the social stability of the community as
a
whole.
It
is over these matters that the scientist, especially the medical profession,
is likely to differ increasingly from the theologian and the moralist, while the
law,
if
it takes too unyielding a stand by the side of the latter, may find itself
accused of defending an abstract moral principle without any demonstrable
social necessity
or
justification.
In his courageous new book
The
Banctity
of
Life
and
the
Criminal
Law,
which has grown out of lectures delivered in the United States two years
ago,
Dr.
Glanville Williams addresses himself to some of these lirninal
problems of law and morals and suggests that, in many respects, the legal
position lags far and even dangerously behind modern needs. In certain
instances the growth of legal fictions has enabled the courts to escape from
the most harsh and cruel results which might flow from strict application of
the common law: the crime of attempted suicide and infanticide are both
instances where even statutory recognition is now given to the presumption of
a
‘‘
temporary disturbance” of the mind of the accused. In other fields the
bark of the law is far worse than its bite. Take abortion. At present both
English law and the great majority of the
U.S.
jurisdictions regard any
interference with pregnancy, however early it may take place, as criminal
unless for therapeutic reasons. Theoretically the mother consenting to an
operation
of
this kind can be sentenced to imprisonment for life, but in
practice she is hardly ever prosecuted at all. What is more, there are
methods of inducing abortion and of terminating pregnancy which can be
practised, at least
at
an early stage, without fear
of
discovery (though not
without grave danger to health) through drugs,
so
that it is impossible to
gainsay the fact that the law of abortion as it stands is ineffective for all its
severity. Euthanasia is murder in the eyes of the law, but.
as
a
recent
cause
cdUbre
has demonstrated, equally difficult to establish and prove at least
when administered by
a
medical practitioner who can, in any event, cut life
short by no more than an act of omission.
Dr.
Glanville Williams examines with great care and fair-mindedness
the present law and the movement of theoloplical teaching and secular thought
which has led up to it. In the end, his analysis of the wider issues raised by
the matters just referred to-infanticide and suicide, induced abortion and
voluntary euthanasia (which fill the major portion of his book)-leads him to
put forward, unequivocally, the view that the law, by prescribing what it
cannot, and often, in the light
of
new medical and sociological knowledge,
848

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