Reply #96: Something like that has happened here pre-Row v Wade

[Nobody]

Ever heard the term "therapeutic abortion"?

Back in the bad old days if a woman was pregnant, usually an upper class unwed girl or young woman, most often living with her parents, the family would hospitalize her, claim to the hospital that she was the victim of rape (even though in some cases the father was a man the woman loved but the family didn't want her seeing) and insist that the abortion was necessary for her mental health.

The idea here is that someone other than the woman is deciding what to do. Rape or no rape, loyal boyfriend or no loyal boyfriend, rich family or no rich family, the woman is not in control of her own circumstances and she's being forced into aborting. Some of these women wanted to go through with the pregnancy, and keep the baby.

Therapeutic abortion was not decried as publicly, perhaps because it was kept quiet, but the point is: The woman herself had no choice. Her body was someone else's property and she had no say.

Those days are not days I'd like to see again.