History of Abortion in the U.S.

BY OBOS ABORTION CONTRIBUTORS | MARCH 28, 2014

Women around the world have used abortion to control their reproduction at
every point in history, and in every known society regardless of its legality.
In the United States, abortion was practiced until about 1880, by which time
most states had banned it except to save the life of the woman. Anti-abortion
legislation was part of a backlash against the growing movements for suffrage and
birth control an effort to control women and confine them to a traditional
childbearing role.
This legislation was also a way for the medical profession to tighten its control
over womens health care, as midwives who performed abortions were a threat to
the male medical establishment. Finally, with the declining birthrate among
whites in the late 1800s, the U.S. government and the eugenics movement were
concerned about race suicide and wanted white U.S.-born women to reproduce.

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When abortion was illegal, the ability of a woman to obtain an abortion, let alone
one that was safe, depended upon her economic situation, her race, and where
she lived. Women with money could often leave the country or find a physician
who would perform the procedure for a high fee. Poor women, for the most part,
were at the mercy of incompetent practitioners with questionable motives.
I had an illegal abortion, which led to infection, and I was close to death. I
ended up in a legal hospital, with a real doctor who managed to pull me
through. Ask me if I would do it again knowing the risksYESabsolutely.
Thank heaven its legal now, so women dont have to endure life-threatening
situations.

Often unable to find a provider, poor women and women of color

disproportionately turned to dangerous self-abortions, such as inserting knitting
needles or coat hangers into the vagina and uterus, douching with dangerous
solutions such as lye, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. All women were
subject to the desperation, shame and fear created by the criminalization of
abortion.
Laws prohibiting abortion took a heavy toll on womens lives and health. Because
many deaths were not officially attributed to unsafe, illegal abortion, its
impossible to know the exact number. However, thousands of women a year were
treated for health complications due to botched, unsanitary or self-induced
abortions; many died, or were left infertile or with chronic illness and pain.

MAKING ILLEGAL ABORTION SAFER

Wherever abortion is illegal and unsafe, committed people take enormous risks
to provide safe abortions clandestinely, to treat women who have complications,
and to help women find safe providers.
Before the Supreme Courts landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in
1973, some dedicated and well-trained physicians and other medical practitioners
risked imprisonment, fines and loss of their medical licenses to provide
abortions. Information about these services often spread by word of mouth.
By the 1960s, the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion a network of
concerned pastors and rabbis, and feminist groups had set up referral services
to help women find safer illegal abortions.
In Chicago, a group of trained laywomen called the Abortion Counseling Service
of the Chicago Womens Liberation Union went even further, creating an
underground feminist abortion service in 1963. The group, whose code name was
Jane, provided safe, inexpensive, and supportive illegal abortions. Over a fouryear period, the group provided more than 11,000 first- and second-trimester
abortions with a safety record comparable to that of todays legal medical
facilities.

Laura Kaplan, a former Jane member and the author of The Story of Jane: The
Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service, describes the women
involved:
We were ordinary women who, working together, accomplished something
extraordinary. Our actions, which we saw as potentially transforming for other
women, changed us, too. By taking responsibility, we became responsible. Most
of us grew stronger, more self-assured, confident in our own abilities. In picking
up the tools of our own liberation, in our case medical instruments, we broke a
powerful taboo. That act was terrifying, but it was also exhilarating. We ourselves
felt exactly the same powerfulness that we wanted other women to feel.

ORGANIZING TO CHANGE THE LAW

In the 1960s, inspired by the civil rights and antiwar movements, women
organized a womens liberation movement. They fought, marched and lobbied to
make abortion safe and legal. At speak-outs, women talked publicly for the first
time about their illegal abortion experiences.
The womens movement, joined by sympathetic allies within the medical
profession, made visible the millions of women who were willing to break the law
and risk health and life to obtain an abortion. The movement also connected
abortion rights to gender equality.
Between 1967 and 1973, 14 states reformed and four states repealed restrictive
abortion laws. Changes included allowing women access to abortion in certain
circumstances, such as when the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.
In 1970, New York became the first state to legalize abortion on demand through
the 24th week of pregnancy. Hawaii had earlier legalized abortion through 20
weeks, but only for residents of that state.
Two other states, Alaska and Washington, followed, and women who could afford
it began flocking to the few places where abortions were legal. Feminist networks

offered support, loans and referrals and fought to keep prices down. But for every
woman who managed to get to New York, many others with limited financial
resources or mobility still sought illegal abortions.
When I was 15 and pregnant, abortion was illegal. I was denied any choiceI
had a baby that I gave up for adoption. This experience has been a driving force
in my life. I became an OB/GYN; I do abortions because I am totally committed
to making sure that other women have the options that I didnt have.
On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all existing criminal
abortion laws in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The court found that a
womans decision to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester was protected
under the right of privacyfounded in the Fourteenth Amendments concept of
personal liberty.
The court allowed states to place restrictions in the second trimester to protect a
womans health and in the third trimester to protect a viable fetus. However, the
Court held that if a pregnant womans life or health were endangered, she would
not be forced to continue the pregnancy at any stage.

WEAKENING THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION FOR

ABORTION
From 1973 until 1992, the Supreme Court rejected dozens of state efforts to limit
access to abortion. With two big exceptions, the Court enforced Roe v. Wades
ruling that until the point of viability, the state could regulate abortion only to
protect the health and well-being of women.
The exceptions were the 1979 ruling in Bellotti v. Baird, which said that states
could insist that a minor obtain parental consent or persuade a judge that she
was mature or that abortion without parental notification was in her best
interest, and the 1980 ruling in Harris v. McRae, which said that payments for
medically necessary abortions could be excluded from the otherwise
comprehensive Medicaid program.

Abortion rights opponents continued to persuade state and local legislatures to

adopt more restrictive laws. In 1992, the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision
upheld a highly restrictive Pennsylvania law that included mandatory waiting
periods, parental consent, and biased information. Further, the Court abandoned
the legal principles of Roe and allowed laws designed to limit access to abortion
at any stage of pregnancy, so long as the law does not place an undue burden on
a womans access to abortion.
Though the decision said that spousal consent was an undue burden, in the
aftermath of Casey, hundreds of restrictions have been passed and not seen to be
in violation of the new standard.
More recently, in the 2007 case Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld
the so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The law was passed by Congress and
signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Although there is no medical
procedure known as partial birth, the law has been interpreted as prohibiting
doctors from performing an intact dilation and evacuation (D&E) a procedure
where there is no instrumentation before the fetus is removed unless the fetus
is no longer alive.
The ban has resulted in doctors either choosing a procedure that is less safe for
the woman needing a later abortion, or ensuring that the fetus is not alive before
starting the abortion. The PBA ban opened the door to state restrictions on later
abortions.
In her dissent to Gonzales v. Carhart, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg decried the ruling, saying:
Todays decision is alarming It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention
to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by
the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the
line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And,
for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception
safeguarding a womans health.