History of Abortion

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caltrek
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History of Abortion

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Abortion Has Been Common in the U.S. since the 18th Century – and Debate Over It Started Soon After
May 5, 2022

https://theconversation.com/abortion-ha ... ter-182496

Extract:
(The Conversation) Although various forms of birth control predate the birth control pill, the FDA’s approval of Enovid-10 (commonly known as “The Pill”) was a watershed in the national debate around family planning and reproductive choice.

From unregulated to criminalized

From the nation’s founding through the early 1800s, pre-quickening abortions – that is, abortions before a pregnant person feels fetal movement – were fairly common and even advertised.

In the mid- to late-1800s, an increasing number of states passed anti-abortion laws sparked by both moral and safety concerns. Primarily motivated by fears about high risks for injury or death, medical practitioners in particular led the charge for anti-abortion laws during this era.

By 1860, the American Medical Association sought to end legal abortion. The Comstock Law of 1873 criminalized attaining, producing or publishing information about contraception, sexually transmitted infections and diseases, and how to procure an abortion.

Expanding legal abortion

In 1967, Colorado became the first state to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy would cause permanent physical disability to the birth parent.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade occurred in 1973.

Edit: A more complete timeline is available at this site: https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-abor ... story.html
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Re: History of Abortion

Post by weatheriscool »

Well, the greeks use to leave their children out in the wild to be ate by wild animals and Aztecs use to cut their hearts out for the gods to bless them with good times.
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caltrek
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Re: History of Abortion

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^^^Thank you for your comment.

Edit: Original first sentence of this post deleted.
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Re: History of Abortion

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The Long Hand of Slave Breeding, Redux
by Joann WypiJewski
May 6, 2022

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/06 ... ing-redux/

Introduction:
(Counterpoint) I hate liberalism’s language of choice. I always have. Redolent of the marketplace, it reduces the most intimate aspects of existence, of women’s physical autonomy, to individualistic purchasing preferences. A sex life or a Subaru? A child or a cheeseburger? Life, death or liposuction? In that circumstance, capitalism’s only question is, Who pays and who profits? The state’s only question is, Who regulates and how much? If there is a sliver of benefit to the right’s ongoing and grotesque multi-front assault on women, it is the clarion it sounds to humanists to take the high ground and ditch the anodyne talk of “a woman’s right to choose” for the weightier, fundamental assertion of “a woman’s right to be.”

That requires that we look anew to history and the Constitution, which, Justice Alito is quite correct, does not include the word ‘abortion’ (or ‘space travel’ or ‘automobile’ or even ‘woman’) but does include ‘slavery’.

When I first wrote that opening paragraph, in 2012, my friend and sister Pamela Bridgewater, who’d been their impetus, was alive. She was starting cancer treatments, which ultimately failed. At that moment, though, she was intending to revise her legal writings on reproductive liberty and the legacies of slave breeding into a book that would speak a common language to women, particularly the class of women whom she’d escorted to safety while doing clinic defense in Florida, Wisconsin, DC. She was a legal scholar, a professor, an activist, a sex radical, a diva. Pamela was fire.

She was also very sick. I mostly use her familiar name here because the circumstances of first writing were intimate. Dying is intimate, even if, like being born, it is also social. I had been staying at Pamela’s house, a big, welcoming place in DC that she and her husband, Kweku Toure, filled with friends, food, fast talk and quiet when that was required. One afternoon we were two women sitting around talking the way friends do—a little gossip, a little news, a little bit about the Thirteenth Amendment. Pamela had been talking about the Thirteenth as long as I’d known her. She was fascinated by the complex history and legal interpretations secreted behind its plain language:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
caltrek's comment: This raises an interesting point: Is not forcing a woman to the full term of her pregnancy a form of "involuntary servitude" and thus should be prohibited under the Thirteenth Amendment?

Now a "textualist" should agree. Even though abortion is not explicitly mentioned in this passage, clearly the answer should be yes.

An "originalist" might disagree: surely that was not the "original" intent behind the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. The drafters of that amendment simply did not have abortion in mind.

One problem is the inconsistency of "textualists." That is to say that they are philosophically textualists - except when they are not...
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Re: History of Abortion

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Inside the 1970s Abortion Underground
by Dylon Jones
May 6, 2022

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... o-00030433

Introduction:
(Politico) In 1965, Heather Booth was a student at the University of Chicago when a friend reached out to her for help: His sister needed an abortion.

Booth had never given abortion much thought — “I didn’t understand that even three people talking about providing an abortion was a felony,” she says today — but she wanted to help, so she found a physician who was willing to perform the illegal procedure, T.R.M. Howard, a major figure in the civil rights movement. Then she got another request. And another.

The calls kept coming, and Booth recruited more women to help, creating a system known by the anonymous name “Jane.” Called “The Service” by some members, Jane grew into an underground network of women who organized clandestine, illegal abortions in their homes and apartments — a safer alternative than those provided by the mob. Eventually, the women of Jane learned to perform the procedure themselves
Conclusion:
Kaplan: Well, you know, what Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourn, organize.” So I’m sure this is happening. I don’t know. And wouldn’t tell you if I did know of what is going on.

But I know that women are not going to let other women suffer and die for a theocracy that is not of their making, and that doesn’t speak to any of their needs, concerns or issues — that doesn’t respect women and the sometimes very difficult decisions that women have to make.
Re: Joe Hill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_mourn,_organize!
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Re: History of Abortion

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What Alito Gets Wrong About the History of Abortion in America
by Leslie Reagan
June 2, 2022

Introduction:
(Politico) If it were possible to eavesdrop on conversations among women and some doctors in early America, you might overhear the phrase “bringing on the menses.” If a woman didn’t menstruate when expected, she was considered to be sick and action was required to bring her back to health. Women who had “a common cold” — a euphemism for “obstructed” menses — used a variety of methods, teas and concoctions to bring “their menses back.”

In other words, returning menstruation to its normal cycle was within the purview of a woman’s own self-health care and was not regulated by the state until after “quickening” — the moment during a pregnancy when a woman could feel a fetus kick and recognized a life “stirring” within her. Quickening occurred between the fourth and sixth month of pregnancy. Only after quickening was an induced miscarriage, an abortion, considered immoral and banned by law.

The truth is that abortion is deeply rooted in our nation’s history — in practice, in morality and in law. Abortion was not always a crime — although Justice Samuel Alito speciously claims otherwise in his recently disclosed draft majority opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“An unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973,” Alito asserts in the draft opinion.

The logic that Alito uses in the draft opinion leans heavily on history — history that he gets egregiously wrong. Alito explicitly dismisses the distinction between ending a pregnancy before or after quickening, a distinction that my research has found was critical to the way American women and American physicians traditionally thought about pregnancy. In early America as in early modern England, abortion before “quickening” was legal under common law and widely accepted in practice.
Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine ... -00036174
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Re: History of Abortion

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Conservative Supreme Court Justices Disagree About How to Read the Law
by Jed Barnes
June 8, 2022


Extract:
(The Conversation) Alito’s reasoning in the Dobbs draft is similar to his explanation in the Bostock ruling in three ways that highlight his approach to legal interpretation.

First, he begins with the language of the governing law. Alito finds no specific reference to abortion in the U.S. Constitution, and no implicit right to abortion in any other constitutional provision, including the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, which says the government shall not deprive a person “of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

Second, Alito argues that when the governing law is silent (or ambiguous) on issues, judges should let the elected branches decide them. In the Dobbs draft, he calls the finding of implied rights in Roe an “abuse of judicial authority.”

Third, Alito argues that history holds the key to reading the law. He says that any argument that abortion is implicitly included in the 14th Amendment’s due process clause fails because in 1868, the year the amendment was ratified, 28 of the 37 states criminalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy. And, he notes, eight of the remaining nine states passed laws doing so before 1910.

Alito further claims that the ruling would not mean the end of other constitutionally protected rights, like interracial marriage and same-sex marriage, because abortion is “unique” in that it destroys an “unborn human being.” But this statement is what lawyers call “dicta” – comments that are incidental to the resolution of the case. In fact, Alito’s legal methodology is not limited to abortion rights or even constitutional law, as seen from its use in the Bostock ruling.
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/conservati ... aw-183590
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Re: History of Abortion

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Roe Overturned: What you Need to Know About the Supreme Court Abortion Decision
by Linda C. McClain
June 24, 2022

Extract:
(The Conversation) Republican appointees Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter upheld Roe. They revised its framework to allow more state regulation throughout pregnancy and weakened the test for evaluating those laws. Under Roe’s “strict scrutiny” test, any restriction on the right to privacy to access an abortion had to be “narrowly tailored” to further a “compelling” state interest. But Casey’s “undue burden” test gave states wider latitude to regulate abortion.

Even before (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – handed down on June 24, 2022, the ability to access abortion was limited by a patchwork of laws across the United States. Republican states have more restrictive laws than Democratic ones, with people living in the Midwest and South subject to the strongest limits.

The court’s narrow approach to the concept of constitutional liberty is at odds with the broader position it took in the earlier Casey ruling, as well as in a landmark marriage equality case, 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges. But the majority said in its ruling that the decision would have no impact on the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Alito’s opinion also rejected the legal principle of “stare decisis,” or adhering to precedent. Supporters of the right to abortion argue that the Casey and Roe rulings should have been left in place as, in the words of the Casey ruling, reproductive rights allow women to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation.”

The ruling does not mean that abortion is banned throughout the U.S. Rather, arguments about the legality of abortion will now play out in state legislatures, where, Alito noted, women “are not without electoral or political power.”
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/roe-overtu ... on-184692

caltrek’s comment: Alito noted, women “are not without electoral or political power” – even as they move forward with efforts to allow greater and greater voter suppression measures. Women would be wise to exercise what electoral power they have left to mitigate the impact of the court’s recent decision. History should serve as a good guide in that effort.
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Re: History of Abortion

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Privacy Isn’t in the Constitution – but It’s Everywhere in Constitutional Law
by Scott Skinner-Thompson
June 24, 2022

Introduction:
(The Conversation) Almost all American adults – including parents, medical patients and people who are sexually active – regularly exercise their right to privacy, even if they don’t know it.

Privacy is not specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. But for half a century, the Supreme Court has recognized it as an outgrowth of protections for individual liberty. As I have studied in my research on constitutional privacy rights, this implied right to privacy is the source of many of the nation’s most cherished, contentious and commonly used rights – including the right to have an abortion – until the court’s June 24, 2022, ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.

A key component of liberty

The Supreme Court first formally identified what is called “decisional privacy” – the right to independently control the most personal aspects of our lives and our bodies – in 1965, saying it was implied from other explicit constitutional rights.

For instance, the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly allow people to privately decide what they’ll say, and with whom they’ll associate. The Fourth Amendment limits government intrusion into people’s private property, documents and belongings.
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/privacy-is ... aw-183204

caltrek's comment: “Privacy is not specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. But for half a century, the Supreme Court has recognized it as an outgrowth of protections for individual liberty.” I think this subtle analysis became part of the problem. Liberals spoke in shorthand about the “right of privacy.” It was not “privacy” as a right that was being defended. It was liberty itself. Forcing a woman to come to full term, especially in cases of rape or incest, is a form of involuntary servitude. Even where rape and incest are not involved, there is a question of implied agreements during the act of conception. If men are not willing to step forward to assume their parental responsibility, then women should have the freedom of control over their own bodies and not be forced into involuntary servitude. For me, that is a much stronger argument than confusing allusions to a “right to privacy.”
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Re: History of Abortion

Post by Time_Traveller »

caltrek wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:47 pm Roe Overturned: What you Need to Know About the Supreme Court Abortion Decision
by Linda C. McClain
June 24, 2022

Extract:
(The Conversation) Republican appointees Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter upheld Roe. They revised its framework to allow more state regulation throughout pregnancy and weakened the test for evaluating those laws. Under Roe’s “strict scrutiny” test, any restriction on the right to privacy to access an abortion had to be “narrowly tailored” to further a “compelling” state interest. But Casey’s “undue burden” test gave states wider latitude to regulate abortion.

Even before (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – handed down on June 24, 2022, the ability to access abortion was limited by a patchwork of laws across the United States. Republican states have more restrictive laws than Democratic ones, with people living in the Midwest and South subject to the strongest limits.

The court’s narrow approach to the concept of constitutional liberty is at odds with the broader position it took in the earlier Casey ruling, as well as in a landmark marriage equality case, 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges. But the majority said in its ruling that the decision would have no impact on the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Alito’s opinion also rejected the legal principle of “stare decisis,” or adhering to precedent. Supporters of the right to abortion argue that the Casey and Roe rulings should have been left in place as, in the words of the Casey ruling, reproductive rights allow women to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation.”

The ruling does not mean that abortion is banned throughout the U.S. Rather, arguments about the legality of abortion will now play out in state legislatures, where, Alito noted, women “are not without electoral or political power.”
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/roe-overtu ... on-184692

caltrek’s comment: Alito noted, women “are not without electoral or political power” – even as they move forward with efforts to allow greater and greater voter suppression measures. Women would be wise to exercise what electoral power they have left to mitigate the impact of the court’s recent decision. History should serve as a good guide in that effort.
This also tells you that women in the US can't make their own decision without the republicans having a say about their reproductive system.
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