Commonwealth v. Bangs

Decided October 15, 1812

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1812-10-15

The defendant was indicted, October term, 1810, for assaulting and beating one Lucy Holman, and administering to her a certain dangerous and deleterious drought or potion, against her will, with intent to procure the abortion and premature birth of a bastard child, of which she was then pregnant, and which the defendant had before that time begotten of her body, et alla enormia, &c., to the great damage of the said Lucy, against good morals and good manners, in evil example…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1812-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1979

7 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

By the Court.

¶1There can be no sentence upon this verdict. The assault and battery are out of the case, and no abortion is alleged to have followed the taking of the potion; and if an abortion had been alleged and proved to have ensued, the averment that the woman was quick with child at the time is a necessary part of the indictment, (a)

¶2Judgment arrested.

¶3[An attempt to procure abortion, even when the pregnant woman is not quick with child, is a misdemeanor at the common law. — 3 Chitty, Crim. Law, 798, — 1 Russell on Crimes, 2d. Eng. ed. 553. —And it is made felony by recent English statutes when the woman is quick with child, and highly penal in other cases. — 43 Geo. 3, c 58.— See 1,2,1 Geo. 4, c. 31, § 13 — 10 Geo.4, c. 34, § 16.—Ed.]