Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in 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 "quickening" were openly advertised and commonly performed. By 1860, only 20 states had laws limiting abortion rights, and to varying degrees. It was only by the beginning of the 20th century had the law truly changed for the worst. Criminalization of abortion did not reduce the numbers of women who sought abortions the procedure being utilized by woman in the numbers possibly in the hundreds of thousands annually at this time. http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html According to W. Cates et al ("Trends in national abortion mortality, United States, 1940-1974," Advances in Planned Parenthood, 1976), 1,682 abortion-related deaths were officially reported in 1940. However, due to underreporting, the number could have been above 6000. Self-induced and back-alley abortions were becoming a thing of the past long before Roe: sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated in the 1950s that around 85 percent of illegal abortions were performed by physicians, even if the physicians weren't all in good standing. The fact is that prior to legalization abortion had become relatively safe and easy to obtain for those who could afford it. Studies done at the time show that the risks were borne disproportionately by those who couldn't, mostly minorities. Were abortion to be recriminalized, that would likely be the case again. http://www.straightdope.com/columns...0-000-women-a-year-die-from-illegal-abortions An old obstetrician and gynecologist from Boston, Waldo L. Fielding, who had worked in the field for 38 years, recalls how independent procedures and desperate mothers utilized almost any implement you can imagine to start an abortion darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional. It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days. What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens and freeing their doctors to treat them as such. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/health/views/03essa.html What does all this tell us? Well first, abortion has been a very common and historical practice. Whats more, the push for criminalization is naïve if it based on the idea it will stop abortions generally. The only effect it will have is the causation of more deaths. In fact that is perhaps the most revealing dilemma posed; the fact that lifers do not seem to realize that the criminalization of abortion is not just a threat to the mother but also the fetus, which is subject to a harsh environment where no drugs can be administered to prevent pain. That seems the most disturbing quality of the call for criminalization by lifers a total disregard for the implications of criminalization, particularly for fetuses which they apparently seek to protect. The fact is criminalization of abortion does not prevent the practice. If made illegal, abortion would be reestablished in a criminal market with an increasingly more efficient and readily available outlet to woman seeking such procedures. This is why I invoked that old expression to thank God, in this thread. We ought to be extremely grateful for abortion rights. Their availability is the hallmark of a free and prosperous society that recognizes basic liberties and the harsh realities that lifers seem to disregard would others emerge without the safe medical environment mothers are currently offered to exercise control over their bodies. In that sense, it is an expression, purely, when I say we should thank God for abortion, because ultimately it is the men and woman who fought and struggled for liberty that we should thank, and it is incumbent upon lovers of freedom to be ever vigilant in ensuring these rights are not taken away as they once were.
