abortion: History of Abortion
History of Abortion
Abortion induced by herbs or manipulation was used as a form of birth control in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and probably earlier. In the Middle Ages in Western Europe it was generally accepted in the early months of pregnancy. However, in the 19th cent. opinion about abortion changed. In 1869 the Roman Catholic Church prohibited abortion under any circumstances. In England and in the United States in the 19th cent. stringent antiabortion laws were passed.
Attitudes toward abortion became more liberal in the 20th cent. By the 1970s, abortion had been
legalized in most European countries and Japan; in the United States, under a 1973 Supreme
Court ruling (see Roe v. Wade), abortions were permitted during the first six
months of pregnancy. Abortion remains a controversial issue in the United States, however,
and in 1977 Congress barred the use of Medicaid funds for abortion except
for therapeutic reasons and in certain other specified instances. Several state legislatures
passed restrictive abortion laws in hope that the Supreme Court would overturn
From 1995 to 2000 the U.S. Congress repeatedly passed, but President Bill Clinton vetoed, a bill
that would ban a rare late-term method of abortion called by its critics
“partial-birth abortion.” Subsequent attempts by many U.S. states to ban this
method were contested in the courts, and in 2000 the Supreme Court voided such laws that do
not include an exception when the health of the mother is endangered. A federal bill banning
the procedure was passed again in 2003 and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The
law was quickly challenged in the courts, and a federal judge declared it unconstitutional in
2004 in part because of its lack of a health exception, but the Supreme Court, with two new
conservative members appointed by President Bush, upheld the law in 2007. U.S. opponents of
abortion have used more militant tactics at times in attempts to disrupt the operations of
facilities that perform abortions, and a few extremists have resorted to bombings and
assassination. Over the last decade, individual states have continued to test the limits of
restrictions on abortion, with challenges to two laws—one from Mississippi and one from
Texas—that reached the Supreme Court during its 2021–22 term. The Mississippi
case,
In India, the abortion of female fetuses by couples desiring a male child led (1994) to criminal penalties for prenatal testing when done solely to determine the sex of the fetus; such tests have been banned in parts of China for the same reason. Differences in the number of boys and girls born suggest that the use of abortion to select for a male child may be more common in parts of E and S Asia, the Caucasus, and SE Europe.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- History of Abortion
- Induced Abortion
- Spontaneous Abortion (Miscarriage)
- Bibliography
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