history of abortion

[niyad]

HISTORY OF ABORTION

. . . .
The State didn't prohibit abortion until the 19th century, nor did the Church lead in this new repression. In 1803, Britain first passed antiabortion laws, which then became stricter throughout the century. The U.S. followed as individual states began to outlaw abortion. By 1880, most abortions were illegal in the U.S., except those ``necessary to save the life of the woman.'' But the tradition of women's right to early abortion was rooted in U.S. society by then; abortionists continued to practice openly with public support, and juries refused to convict them.

Abortion became a crime and a sin for several reasons. A trend of humanitarian reform in the mid-19th century broadened liberal support for criminalization, because at that time abortion was a dangerous procedure done with crude methods, few antiseptics, and high mortality rates. But this alone cannot explain the attack on abortion. For instance, other risky surgical techniques were considered necessary for people's health and welfare and were not prohibited. ``Protecting'' women from the dangers of abortion was actually meant to control them and restrict them to their traditional child-bearing role. Antiabortion legislation was part of an antifeminist backlash to the growing movements for suffrage, voluntary motherhood, and other women's rights in the 19th century. *For more information, see Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1990). At the same
time, male doctors were tightening their control over the medical profession. Doctors considered midwives, who attended births and performed abortions as part of their regular practice, a threat to their own economic and social power. The medical establishment actively took up the antiabortion cause in the second half of the 19th century as part of its effort to eliminate midwives

At the same time, male doctors were tightening their control over the medical profession. Doctors considered midwives, who attended births and performed abortions as part of their regular practice, a threat to their own economic and social power. The medical establishment actively took up the antiabortion cause in the second half of the 19th century as part of its effort to eliminate midwives.

Finally, with the declining birth rate among whites in the late 1800s, the U.S. government and the eugenics movement warned against the danger of ``race suicide'' and urged white, native-born women to reproduce. Budding industrial capitalism relied on women to be unpaid household workers, low-paid menial workers, reproducers, and socializers of the next generation of workers. Without legal abortion, women found it more difficult to resist the limitations of these roles.
Then, as now, making abortion illegal neither eliminated the need for abortion nor prevented its practice. In the 1890s, doctors estimated that there were two million abortions a year in the U.S. (compared with one and a half million today). Women who are determined not to carry an unwanted pregnancy have always found some way to try to abort. All too often, they have resorted to dangerous, sometimes deadly methods, such as inserting knitting needles or coat hangers into the vagina and uterus, douching with dangerous solutions like lye, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. The coat hanger has become a symbol of the desperation of millions of women who have risked death to end a pregnancy. When these attempts harmed them, it was hard for women to obtain medical treatment; when these methods failed, women still had to find an abortionist.
. . . .

http://www.feminist.com/resources/ourbodies/abortion.html

[_Liann_]

1. All of this can be true and still miss the central points...

All kinds of thing, bad, stupid, or both, have happened but they may not have any explanatory power for new things bad and stupid happening now. For half the history of this country people didn't even know what germs were, so medicine was practiced by barbers with leeches, and if you think back alley abortions were dangerous in the 1950s you don't have a clue how self-regulating abortions were before people knew what an antibiotic was. When nature killed one out of two women who had an abortion, women had big families with many kids, not because they wanted lots of kids. It didn't require abortion laws to control women reproduction roles.

The central issue today is religious fundamentalists want to piecemeal install a theocracy in place of democracy and abortion arguments give them traction to make their case. Rape is approved in the Bible, in two variations, which makes rape acceptable to theocrats. Virgin girls not engaged to be married were fair game -- if the act was discovered the rapist could buy his way out of the death penalty by paying the father $50 silver shekels and a shotgun wedding followed. Or Hebrew soldiers could take virgin girls with intact hymen as prisoners of war and keep them as wives (possible many wives, as polygamy was also approved, and the bride price was free)..

Theocrats like God's positions on rape. Women were also sold -- as brides, as servants, as sex-slave-concubines. Detailed directions are found in the Bible. (Google: BIBLE SELL DAUGHTER.)

So theocrats are short on women's rights and long on patriarchy control over women, seeing them as sex slaves and breeder slaves. The Bible gives them permission. However most other bizarre practices of the Bible are thrown out in the trash. The Bible literally bans spandex, a multifiber fabric. Theocrats are practical politicians cynically picking and choosing that which advances them into power and leaving alone those things that inconvenience them.

The weird non-biblical doctrine of souls is justification for "personhood". The theocrat accepts the dogma without proof that God instills a soul in a fertilized egg at moment of conception. In Vitro Fertilization used by three of Mitt RMoney's sons is fertilizing eggs in a test tube and implanting one or more (remember Octomom) in the uterus. Theocrats believe that the doctor whistles up Step-and-Fetchit God to deliver souls to each egg in the test tube, without flinching about how bizarre that belief is that anybody can make God deliver souls on a whim.

This belief that there are souls feeds the argument for "personhood", that the zygote is a full person.

A zygote with a soul is a complete person, and abortion is murder of that person according to the doctrine of the theocrats.

Birth control pills keep the zygote from implanting on the uterine wall, so birth control is murder. Plan B is murder. IUDs are murder.

It all has to do with theocrats picking doctrine and dogma useful in controlling people and advancing their political power and control further.

Moses was wandering the Sinai desert for 40 years (which is 14,610 days). Jerusalem is 262 air miles from Cairo Egypt. Moses and his people basically traveled about 94 feet per calendar day, one third of a city block. These people were just too dumb to make a really world-class religion, but thanks to the Romans, and particularly the Roman Catholics, and lots and lots of swords, the theocrats over time rammed their kook-a-doodle beliefs down the throats of a sixth of this world's population. It helped that the Romans had already conquered the "known" world by the time the Judeo-Christian meme infected them.


Theocrats are undermining democracy in America - literally with block-the-vote laws and organized crime means.

They depend on people staying dumb and brainwashed while they complete their mission. You have to decide if you want to beat around the Burning Bush or chop it down.

This is a seriously overpopulated planet -- you need to make an appoint a year in advance to get a campsite in a "wilderness area". Big families are not economic success, but a poverty inducing drain, and intelligent family planning requires using the modern choices of IUD, pill, Plan B or abortion without being controlled by other people unwilling to share the bills when baby needs new shoes.

We need people big enough to tell god "opps, you made a mistake, and I'm sending you back this one."

We need people willing to use the brains god supposed gave them.

[Tx4obama]

2. Kick! n/t

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. K&R. Thanks for posting this. Too few people know just how many really bad ideas that

we still cling to and practice today are rooted in the ignorance and perversion of the 19th century.

[HopeHoops]

4. K&R

[niyad]

5. . . .

[kiva]

6. If you look at classified ads

in post-Civil War newspapers, you'll find plenty of ads that promise procedures that will "restart the menses" or similar wording that makes it clear that they provide abortions. It wasn't some sort of underground procedure.

Was it dangerous? Yes, but at a time when many doctors didn't wash their hands before delivery (most midwives seemed better about this) giving birth was also dangerous.