serious danger, or when I can free myself some other way, or when I act
through malice, would not be self-defence, but unjustifiable violence on
my part.

2. The principles that make it lawful for a man to defend his own life
with violence against an unjust assailant will also justify a parent in
thus defending his children, a guardian his wards; and in fact any one
may forcibly defend any other human being against unjust violence. A
parent or guardian not only can, but he is in duty bound to, defend
those under his charge by all lawful means. Similarly the physician
would be obliged to defend his patient by the exercise of his profession
in his behalf.

Now the only case in which the need of medical treatment against unjust
aggression could become a matter for discussion in Jurisprudence is the
case of a mother with child. Is the child under those circumstances
really an unjust aggressor? Let us study that important case with the
closest attention. Let all the rays of light we have gathered so far be
focussed on this particular point. Can a physician ever be justified in
destroying the life of a child, before or during its birth, by
craniotomy or in any other manner, in order to save its mother's life,
on the plea that the child is an unjust assailant of the life of its
mother? Put the case in a definite shape before you. Here is a mother in
the pangs of parturition. An organic defect, no matter in what shape or
form, prevents deliverance by the ordinary channels. All that medical
skill can do to assist nature has been done. The case is desperate.
Other physicians have been called in for consultation, as the civil law
requires before it will tolerate extreme measures. All agree that, if no
surgical operation is performed, both mother and child must die. There
are the Cæsarian section, the Porro operation, laparotomy,