Abortion Laws: A Historical Perspective On Their Evolution

Abortion laws have been around for a long time, but their history is complex and contentious. In the US, abortion was not outlawed until the mid-1800s, and before that, it was a regular part of life for women. Common law allowed abortion prior to quickening, an archaic term for foetal movement that usually occurs around four months into a pregnancy.

In the US, abortion was criminalised in the late 1800s, and by 1910, it was banned nationwide. However, wealthy white women could still access abortions by travelling to other states or countries where it was legal. This period also saw the rise of dangerous, illegal abortions, which often resulted in death.

The 20th century saw the emergence of abortion law reform movements, and in 1973, the landmark Roe v. Wade case established the legal right to access abortion nationwide. However, abortion remains a divisive issue, and laws and access to abortion continue to vary widely across the US and the world.

Abortion was not illegal in the US until the mid-1800s

Connecticut was the first state to regulate abortion in 1821. It outlawed abortion after quickening and forbade the use of poisons to induce abortion post-quickening. Many states subsequently passed various laws on abortion until the Supreme Court of the United States decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decriminalized abortion nationwide in 1973.

The mid-1800s saw a coalition of male doctors, with the support of the Catholic Church, lead a movement to push state governments to outlaw abortion. The male-dominated medical profession wanted to take authority from the female-dominated profession of midwives, including the authority to provide abortion. By 1910, abortion was banned nationwide. However, wealthy white women could afford to travel to skirt the law and access abortion while others could not.

The abortion-rights movement advocates for patient choice and bodily autonomy, while the anti-abortion movement maintains that the fetus has a right to live.

In the 19th century, the American Medical Association (AMA) launched a campaign to criminalise abortion

In the 19th century, abortion was a common practice in the United States. However, this began to change as doctors, particularly male doctors, sought to criminalise the procedure. In 1847, the American Medical Association (AMA) was formed. The AMA was a male-dominated authority on medical practices that sought to scrutinise and delegitimise the work of reproductive healthcare workers like midwives and nurses. The association's members believed that they should have the power to decide when abortions could be legally performed.

AMA members launched a full-fledged campaign to criminalise abortion and female abortion providers. This campaign was driven by several factors. Firstly, there was a growing belief among doctors that they, as trained professionals, should oversee women's reproductive health. This was part of a broader effort to standardise medical practices and exclude "irregulars" who were often untrained and provided cheap competition. Additionally, there were concerns about falling birth rates, and abortion was seen as a way to encourage upper-class white women to have more children. Finally, some doctors, such as Horatio Storer, considered women's desire to terminate their pregnancies as tantamount to insanity and a social crime.

The AMA's campaign was successful in shifting social attitudes towards abortion and led to the criminalisation of abortion in the late 19th century. By 1880, all states had laws restricting abortion, and by 1910, abortion was illegal at every stage of pregnancy in every state. This criminalisation had devastating consequences, driving the practice underground and resulting in unsafe procedures that caused high maternal death rates. It wasn't until the early 1970s that abortion was legalised again in the United States, ending a "century of criminalisation".

By 1910, abortion was banned across the US

The campaign to criminalize abortion was also driven by concerns about losing demographic power among white men in power, as America had experienced several decades of increased immigration. They supported abortion bans as a way to get upper-class white women to have more children.

By 1880, all states had laws to restrict abortion, with exceptions in some states if a doctor said the procedure was needed to save the life or health of the patient, or for therapeutic reasons. But by 1910, abortion was not only restricted but outright illegal at every stage of pregnancy in every state in the country. These abortion bans had some exceptions in instances to save the patient's life—a decision that only doctors, 95% of whom were men, had the power to make.

The criminalization of abortion had deadly consequences. In 1930, unsafe, illegal abortion was the cause of death for nearly 2,700 women—almost one out of every five recorded maternal deaths that year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

In 1973, Roe v. Wade made abortion legal nationwide

The case was brought by Norma McCorvey, under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe", who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in a U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe was among the most controversial in U.S. history. The ruling was criticized by some in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. The decision also radically reconfigured the voting coalitions of the Republican and Democratic parties in the following decades.

The decision in Roe v. Wade was eventually overruled in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion.

In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned

The 2022 decision, which came about as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ended protection of abortion rights by the United States Constitution and allowed individual states to regulate any aspect of abortion not preempted by federal law. The ruling effectively gave states the authority to set their own abortion policies, which vary widely.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was met with widespread disapproval, with 62% of Americans saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A majority of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court's ruling, with 57% disagreeing and 43% strongly disagreeing. The disapproval was particularly pronounced among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 82% of whom disapproved of the ruling.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade had a significant impact on abortion access in the United States. In the two years since the ruling, more than a dozen states have banned most or virtually all abortions. Abortion rights supporters have condemned these decisions, arguing that they jeopardize the lives, safety, and health of those seeking abortions.

The ruling has also had a notable impact on politics and elections in the United States. Abortion has become a major issue in presidential elections, with candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties taking opposing stances on the issue.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade has had far-reaching consequences, reshaping the abortion access landscape and sparking ongoing debates and legal challenges surrounding abortion policies and reproductive rights in the United States.

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