At an 1857 meeting of the Suffolk District Medical Society in Massachusetts, a young doctor, Horatio Robinson Storer, raised the uncomfortable topic of abortion, which was illegal, but common, at the time. He cited the cases of 15 women whom he had treated in the preceding six months for the procedure’s terrible effects.1 He noted widespread ignorance of the fact that the fetus was a human being from the earliest stages of pregnancy. But this was no excuse. Indeed, Storer emphasized the “moral and absolute guilt of the parties offending” and called upon physicians to “show to the community the sincere abhorrence with which they viewed the crime.”2 Though some objected strongly to his position, he was not deterred. He would go on to become America’s most ardent defender of the unborn during the next half century. For his work, he was widely honored, including election as vice-president of the American Medical Association while he was still in his thirties.3

Storer’s focus was unusual since few doctors dedicated themselves to women’s health in his day. In fact, when he began to practice medicine in 1853, most physicians refused to examine the bodies of females reporting problems with their reproductive organs. Instead, they merely prescribed medicine based on the patient’s description of the symptoms. As a result, women frequently suffered and died from conditions that would have been treatable if properly diagnosed.4 For Storer, this was totally unacceptable. So he became the first physician in America to establish gynecology as a legitimate medical specialty.5 In that field, he became a champion not only of women, but the babies they carried.

For instance, in an 1856 book review, he attacked craniotomy—the practice of crushing a child’s skull to allow delivery in stalled labors: “The deliberately sacrificing an unborn but still living child,” he said, “in cases where statistics go to prove that the adoption of another mode of delivery … would give that child a good chance of successful birth, is nothing short of wilful murder.”6 Then, in 1858, in an address to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he embraced and commended the words of Thomas Percival, the eighteenth-century founder of medical jurisprudence: “To extinguish the first spark of life is a crime of the same nature, both against our Maker and society, as to destroy an infant, a child, or a man.”7

Storer founded a gynecological ward at Boston’s Lying-In Hospital and, contrary to common practice, admitted unmarried mothers, hoping that he could dissuade them from terminating illegitimate pregnancies with abortion or infanticide.8 He also earned a law degree from Harvard in order to advance the legal fight against abortion and improve his standing with attorneys prosecuting abortion cases.9

He particularly appreciated Christians who stood for the sanctity of life. In his estimation, the Roman Catholic Church had saved millions of lives with its teachings on fetal sacredness.10 Yet he was dismayed that many of the clergy were less vocal than physicians in decrying abortion. Significantly, his crusade for unborn life took on new meaning when he found eternal life in 1869, converting from Unitarianism to faith in the Triune God.11

Storer championed a variety of causes, including racial justice12 and temperance.13 He was also well-known for his philanthropy and hospitality.14 But, as one historian has argued, Storer was the most important American of the nineteenth century because so many owed their existence to his fight against abortion.15 Indeed, those who read these very words – as well as their friends and acquaintances – might not have existed at all had Storer not worked to protect their forebears throughout their days in the womb.
 
Footnotes:
 
1  Frederick N. Dyer, Champion of Women and the Unborn: Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D. (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 106.
 
2  Ibid., 100-101.
 
3  Ibid., 533.
 
4  Ibid., 1-2.
 
5  Ibid., 387-388.
 
6  Ibid., 97.
 
7  Ibid., 139.
 
8  Ibid., 87.
 
9  Ibid., 175.
 
10  Ibid., 138-139.
 
11  He declared: “Compelled humbly to surrender to the Master my life had denied, I find a peace of which before I had had no conception, & then strangely enough, the harbor of refuge for which my ships at sea had been so long & so ineffectually struggling was reached at last on Christmas Eve.” Ibid., 295.
 
12  Ibid., 491-492.
 
13  Ibid., 528.
 
14  Ibid., 526-529. There is also a Horatio R. Storer Foundation, which is associated with the National Right to Life Committee.
 
15  Ibid., 537-538.
 
    Related Articles
 
TOPIC OVERVIEW: “Mapping the Terrain—Abortion & Infanticide” public
“Abortion & Early Pagan Culture” — [4th – 1st Century B.C.]
“The Hippocratic Oath: A Cure for Medical Moral Relativism” — [420 B.C.]
“Why Is the New Testament Silent about Abortion?” — [50 – 150]
“The Council of Elvira” — [c. 305]
“Champion of Life – Horatio Robinson Storer (1830-1922)” public
Margaret Sanger: “Enabling a ‘Liberated’ Woman” — [1913]
“Early Evil: The Legalization of Abortion in Russia” — [1920]
Gianna Beretta Molla: “Save the Child!” — [1961]
Dr. Bernard Nathanson: “The Silent Scream” — [1970]
 
 
article from Kairos Journal 

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located at 4800 West Pulaski Hwy., Perryville, MD.