Abortion

Abortion. The legal status of abortion in the United States has undergone dramatic shifts but its practice has been consistent: Throughout American history, many women have relied on abortion to control their fertility. Before the mid–nineteenth century, abortion induced prior to quickening (the moment when the pregnant woman feels fetal movement) was a legal and accepted practice, especially for young, unmarried women. By midcentury, the commercialization of abortion gave greater visibility to its prevalence among married, white, native‐born women. This increased visibility coincided with growing agitation by women for fuller inclusion in public life and with increased immigration of ethnically diverse people, both of which provoked concern about the nation's changing character. Thus when physicians pursued the criminalization of abortion in an effort to stabilize their professional standing through laws restraining their competitors, especially midwives, their proposals resonated with legislators' gender, ethnic, and nationalist fears. In the twenty years between 1860 and 1880, with little public debate, every state made abortion illegal, except when performed by a licensed physician to save the life of the pregnant woman. In this same period, federal and state laws also prohibited the distribution of contraceptive information and devices.

At times during the one hundred years when abortion was illegal, police allowed its practice to continue undisturbed; at times it was repressed. Throughout the period, many women continued to procure abortions despite the risks, and juries often refused to convict abortionists, indicating continued public acceptance of the practice. During the 1930s, abortion clinics run by licensed physicians operated quite openly, contributing to an estimated 800,000 abortions a year. However, the procedure was still quite risky; induced abortions accounted for 14 percent of maternal mortality. After World War II, hospitals tightened the practice of therapeutic abortion by establishing physician review boards, leading to a dramatic reduction in hospital abortions. Police raids on the illegal clinics that had thrived in the 1930s made abortion even more difficult and dangerous to obtain. Abortion death rates doubled between 1951 and 1962, with the risk falling most heavily on women of color who were four times more likely than white women to die from abortion.

Political challenges to abortion laws were rare before the 1960s. The birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger did not contest abortion restrictions, instead pointing to the high rates of injury and death from criminal abortion as a compelling reason to decriminalize contraception. As repression of abortion increased through the 1950s, leading women to take more desperate risks, physicians and women began to seek reform of abortion laws. By 1973, through legislative and court actions, the abortion reform/repeal movement won changes in nineteen state laws. At the same time, networks were organized to provide women with access to safe and affordable illegal abortions. In California, the Society for Humane Abortion inspected facilities, bargained over fees, and referred thousands of women to clean and inexpensive illegal abortions in Mexico. In Chicago, self‐trained women organized an abortion service called Jane that performed twelve thousand abortions between 1969 and 1973 without a single fatality. These referral networks were part of the resurgent women's movement, which also pushed beyond reform to seek repeal of abortion laws. They argued that the decision to abort a pregnancy involved the fundamental right of women to control their bodily processes.

This activism ended in 1973 with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade landmark decision. Grounded in the 1965 decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which had established the right to privacy in contraceptive decision‐making, Roe established a fundamental right to abortion. Under Roe, except to ensure maternal health, states could not restrict abortion before fetal viability. (Viability is the point in pregnancy when the fetus is “capable of meaningful life outside the womb,” roughly the end of the second trimester.) After Roe, maternal mortality rates dropped by almost one half.

Efforts to undercut Roe began almost immediately. Small groups opposed to abortion reform blossomed into the “pro‐life” movement, arguing that abortion violated the fetus's right to life. Initially led by the American Roman Catholic church, the movement expanded as social conservatives and Protestant fundamentalists (some intent on rebuilding the Republican party after Watergate) took up the issue. Early successful restrictions centered on ending federal funding of abortion for poor women and requiring parental consent and notification laws for teenagers. Outside the courtroom and legislature, organized efforts emerged to disrupt the practice of abortion. Harassment of clinic patients and abortion providers became common. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Operation Rescue, led by Randall Terry, blockaded abortion clinics in cities nationwide. The goal of this activity was to publicize the pro‐life cause and make abortion difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Between 1982 and 1998, there were more than 150 bombings and 5 murders associated with anti‐abortion activity.

While not recriminalizing abortion, the Supreme Court in 1992 retreated from its holding in Roe. In the Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, which upheld mandatory waiting periods and state‐mandated counseling, the Court ruled that the state's interest in protecting potential life permitted some restrictions on abortion throughout pregnancy, as long as the restrictions did not impose an undue burden on women. Thus, abortion was no longer a fundamental right; the lower standard of “undue burden” gave legislators greater leeway to limit abortion. As the twentieth century ended, abortion remained legal, but practical access was increasingly problematic. Harassment, violence, and restrictions led many hospitals and practitioners to stop providing abortion. An estimated 83 percent of U.S. counties had no abortion provider. At the same time, however, federal and state laws protecting women's access to clinics, and the innovative use of antiracketeering laws against organizers of clinic blockades, continued to hinder efforts to stop abortion completely.

Anti‐abortion groups staged large protest rallies in 2003, the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade. In 2003 President George W. Bush signed a measure banning late–term abortions, even if the woman's health was at risk. The law immediately faced court challenges. In 2004 Bush signed another measure favored by anti‐abortion activists making it a separate crime if a fetus is harmed during the commission of a federal crime. The Bush administration also barred federal aid to any international organization that supported abortion rights. Meanwhile, public opinion remained closely divided. In a 2002 Gallup Poll, 47 percent of Americans described themselves as “pro‐choice” and 46 percent as “pro‐life.”
See also Birth Control and Family Planning; Medicine; Roman Catholicism; Women's Rights Movements.

Bibliography

James Mohr , Abortion in America, 1978.
Laurence Tribe , Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes, 1990.
Janet Farrell Brodie , Abortion and Contraception in Nineteenth Century America, 1994.
David Garrow , Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade, 1994.
Leslie Reagan , When Abortion Was a Crime, 1997.
Rickie Solinger , Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle 1950–2000, 1998.

Carole R. McCann

; Updated by

Paul S. Boyer