Abortion has been performed for thousands of years and in almost every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived. At the time the constitution was adopted, abortions before the “awakening” were openly performed and advertised. The shift in legal status began to change in the mid-to-late 1800s. Among the earliest settlers, abortion was considered legal up to the point at which a pregnant woman could feel her fetus move in the womb. During the 1800s, all surgical procedures, including legal abortion were extremely risky, and during the 1860s, many states criminalized abortion procedures except for the case of life endangerment to the mother. Hospitals were not common, antiseptics were unknown, and even the most respected doctors only had primitive medical educations. As science and medical advancements were made, many women now had no choice but to get abortions from illegal practitioners without these medical advancements at their disposal. In 1821 America’s first statutory abortion regulation was enacted in Connecticut in order to protect women from abortion inducement through poison administered after the fourth month of pregnancy. This statute would set a precedent that would change the …show more content…
The president calls for the formation of the Presidential Advisory Council on the Status of Women and calls for the repeal of abortion laws. Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington repealed bans on abortion after viability, making abortions available upon the request of a woman and her doctor up to 24 weeks in 1970. In 1970 the portions of the Comstock Act dealing with abortion and contraceptives are repealed, now allowing information about abortion to be circulated. All these laws began to see the tide of abortion regulations change until the landmark case Roe v. Wade in