Good article on abortion history in US

[alwaysinasnit]

https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/health/abortion-history-in-united-states/index.html


snip...

The view from centuries ago

In the 18th century and until about 1880, abortions were allowed under common law and widely practiced. They were illegal only after “quickening,” the highly subjective term used to describe when pregnant women could feel the fetus moving, Reagan said.

“At conception and the earliest stage of pregnancy, before quickening, no one believed that a human life existed; not even the Catholic Church took this view,” Reagan wrote. “Rather, the popular ethic regarding abortion and common law were grounded in the female experience of their own bodies.”

Though it is considered taboo in Christian traditions, until the mid-19th century, “the Catholic Church implicitly accepted early abortions prior to ensoulment,” she explained. “Not until 1869, at about the same time that abortion became politicized in this country, did the church condemn abortion; in 1895, it condemned therapeutic abortion,” meaning procedures to save a woman’s life.

Abortions would become criminalized by 1880, except when necessary to save a woman’s life, not at the urging of social or religious conservatives but under pressure from the medical establishment – and the very organization that today speaks out in support of abortion access, Reagan explained.

snip...

[crickets]

1. Interesting (and depressing) how the same issues crop up in the abortion debate

again and again: racism, money, power, and control. Ugh.

[Hekate]

2. KnR