## Facts

- Robert Wood, a practicing physician, was accused of procuring a miscarriage for Sarah Chaffee after she told him she was pregnant by him.
- Chaffee testified Wood proposed an abortion; she initially objected but later consented.
- The indictment alleged Wood, “maliciously and without lawful justification,” thrust a metallic instrument into Chaffee’s womb while she was pregnant, intending to cause a miscarriage, and that she subsequently delivered the child dead.
- The prosecution introduced evidence of Chaffee’s health and spirits and of stains and marks on her bedclothes about a month after the alleged procedure.
- The defense introduced evidence that Chaffee was pregnant months later; the prosecution rebutted by eliciting that Chaffee had sexual intercourse with Wood between the alleged procedure and the later pregnancy.

## Issues

1. Whether evidence of the woman’s post-event condition (including bedclothes stains and marks a month later) was admissible to prove the alleged abortion.
2. Whether, after the defense showed a later pregnancy, the prosecution could introduce evidence of intercourse between the complainant and defendant in the intervening period.
3. Whether the trial judge erred in instructing that the complainant was not “technically an accomplice,” declining strict accomplice-corroboration treatment, and refusing a mandatory instruction that any material falsehood required rejecting her testimony entirely.
4. Whether the statute required proof that the woman was “quick with child” or that the fetus was alive at the time of the procedure.
5. Whether the indictment was insufficient for failing to allege fetal life, quickening, prematurity, causation of death, or greater specificity as to the instrument and acts.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overruled all exceptions and affirmed the conviction.
- The challenged evidence about the complainant’s condition and physical traces on bedclothes was properly admitted.
- Once the defense introduced evidence of a later pregnancy, the prosecution could rebut by proving intervening intercourse with the defendant.
- The judge’s credibility instructions were proper: the complainant was not technically an accomplice, and the jury could weigh her moral implication without applying strict accomplice corroboration; no mandatory “reject all testimony” instruction was required.
- The statute did not require proof of quickening or fetal vitality.
- The indictment, which tracked the statute and alleged malicious, unjustified instrumental interference with a pregnant woman with intent to procure miscarriage, was legally sufficient without the additional allegations demanded by the defendant.

## Legal Principles

- For procuring a miscarriage under the 1845 Massachusetts statute, “any wicked or base motive” satisfies malice; the woman’s consent and a motive to shield her from disgrace are not lawful justifications.
- The offense does not require proof that the woman was quick with child, nor proof that the fetus was alive at the time of the act.
- An indictment substantially following the statutory language is sufficient without separately pleading quickening, fetal life, prematurity, or detailed causal allegations regarding the fetus’s death.
- Relevant circumstantial evidence concerning the complainant’s condition and surrounding physical circumstances may be admitted to prove the alleged act and its effects.
- The woman on whom the act was performed is not treated as a technical accomplice for strict corroboration purposes; her credibility is for the jury, which may consider her moral implication and any contradictory evidence.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a physician’s conviction for procuring a miscarriage, holding that the statute required only malicious, unjustified intent and conduct to cause miscarriage, not proof of quickening or fetal life, and that the indictment, evidentiary rulings, and credibility instructions were legally adequate.


Commonwealth v. Wood, 77 Mass. 85 (Mass. 1858)