Aaron Monson
His-238
March 18, 2004
Paper One
Perhaps the most volatile and controversial debate of the last century and a half is that of abortion and the legal right for a mother to decide the fate of the unborn child within her. Over the course of these years factions, leagues, and organizations have formed solely for debating the act of abortion and the legal status of such an act. Government policies, ordinances, and laws have been proposed, vetoed, set, and repealed. But during this one hundred fifty year debate, what changes occurred in the attitudes of the public and government, and why did these changes occur? Using historical information from Mohr's Abortion in America and a pro-choice editorial from www.iFeminists.com, I will outline some of these changes in attitude and law, and compare one social concern of the editorial's author, the present-day role of the government and it's "divisive machinations."
In the early- to mid-eighteen hundreds, abortion issues arrived at the doorstep of American women. Typically, an abortion would only be enacted by a lower- to mid-class woman who had been victim to rape, or become pregnant before marriage. However with the onset of industrialization and urbanization, women worked city jobs and thus had little interest in needing half a dozen children for labor in a field. Along with this realization came unwanted pregnancies and the creation of a business and specialized medical practice. During the eighteen hundreds until about mid-century the public, physicians, and the law held rather lax opinions concerning the practice. Since ultrasound and home pregnancy tests were non-existent, the only way to truly know if a woman was with child was quickening. A fetus in utero was only a "potential for life" until it had the ability to move, roughly four to five months into gestation. Under British common law, a forced expulsion of a fetus before quickening was legal and deemed acceptable by most. And as the abortion business expanded, so did the legal debate.
His-238
March 18, 2004
Paper One
Perhaps the most volatile and controversial debate of the last century and a half is that of abortion and the legal right for a mother to decide the fate of the unborn child within her. Over the course of these years factions, leagues, and organizations have formed solely for debating the act of abortion and the legal status of such an act. Government policies, ordinances, and laws have been proposed, vetoed, set, and repealed. But during this one hundred fifty year debate, what changes occurred in the attitudes of the public and government, and why did these changes occur? Using historical information from Mohr's Abortion in America and a pro-choice editorial from www.iFeminists.com, I will outline some of these changes in attitude and law, and compare one social concern of the editorial's author, the present-day role of the government and it's "divisive machinations."
In the early- to mid-eighteen hundreds, abortion issues arrived at the doorstep of American women. Typically, an abortion would only be enacted by a lower- to mid-class woman who had been victim to rape, or become pregnant before marriage. However with the onset of industrialization and urbanization, women worked city jobs and thus had little interest in needing half a dozen children for labor in a field. Along with this realization came unwanted pregnancies and the creation of a business and specialized medical practice. During the eighteen hundreds until about mid-century the public, physicians, and the law held rather lax opinions concerning the practice. Since ultrasound and home pregnancy tests were non-existent, the only way to truly know if a woman was with child was quickening. A fetus in utero was only a "potential for life" until it had the ability to move, roughly four to five months into gestation. Under British common law, a forced expulsion of a fetus before quickening was legal and deemed acceptable by most. And as the abortion business expanded, so did the legal debate.
