Timelines of Philosophy and Politics
Abortion and Family Planning
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- Abortion Laws
- Abortion Decisions
- Related laws, legislation or events
| Abortion Laws and Decisions | |
| 1803 | Through the work of Lord Ellenborough, chancellor of England, the first English act outlawing all attempted abortions was passed. |
| 1812 | The first reported case of abortion was brought before a judge in Massachusetts. The Supreme Judicial Court dismissed charges against Isaiah Bangs because the prosecution could not prove that the woman in question was actually pregnant - and, with no pregnancy, there could be no abortion. |
| 1821 | Connecticut became the first state in America to explicitly outlaw abortion. The law was structured to define which conditions were necessary for the state to prosecute abortionists. |
| 1828 | New York passed a law against abortion, but allowed it when "necessary to preserve the life of such woman." This became known as a "therapeutic" exception to abortion, and could be invoked whenever two doctors agreed that it was necessary. |
| 1845 | Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dismissed an abortion case against Luceba Parker because there was no evidence that the fetus had "quickened." Thus, there was no way to tell if an actual abortion had even occurred. |
| 1845 | New York passed the first law making the death of a fetus, rather than the death of a woman undergoing an abortion, a criminal offense. An attempted abortion at any time during a pregnancy was also made a crime. |
| 1846 | A new Massachusetts law banned all attempted abortions at any time during a pregnancy, regardless of the intent of the person performing the abortion. |
| 1850s & 1860s | The rate of abortion may have been as high as one in every five or six live births, with an abortionist working in nearly every town and village. |
| 1860 | Connecticut and Pennsylvania passed laws determining that any woman who sought an abortion or who performed an abortion on herself is guilty of a felony. |
| 1870 | After this time, the burden of proof rested with the defense in order to prove that a pregnancy had gone wrong and/or that an abortion was a medical necessity when abortion related charges were brought up. |
| 1871 | The American Medical Association and various leading doctors issued a condemnation of abortion for any reason and asked state governments to make abortion a crime. At the time, abortions tended to be performed by people other than doctors and was usually very dangerous. |
| March, 1873 | Congress passed an amendment to the 1872 federal obscenity law in order to prohibit the importation or dissemination "any card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind stating when, where, how, or of whom, or by what means, any of the articles in this section ...whether for the prevention of conception or for causing unlawful abortion ...can be purchased or obtained, or shall manufacture, draw, or print or in any wise make any of such articles." |
| 1882 | The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution did not have to establish that a woman was pregnant in order to charge an abortionist with a crime. The attempt alone was a crime. |
| 1907 | Indiana passed the first law requiring the sterilization of "habitual criminals." By 1917, fourteen more states followed this example. A variety of "defectives" were forced to undergo sterilization, including epileptics, the mentally ill, those with low IQ scores, and a variety of criminals. By 1929, twenty-three states had eugenics laws on the books, providing for the sterilization of various types of citizens in order to eliminate any possible progeny. |
| October 16, 1916 | Margaret Sanger, along with Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindell established the nation's first family planning center in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. After ten days, the policy closed the clinic because of the New York State 1873 "Comstock Law," outlawing the dissemination of birth control information. |
| 1921 | Margaret Sanger started the American Birth Control League. In 1937 this group joined other family planning clinics around the country to form the Birth Control Federation of America. In 1942, it was renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation. |
| 1927 | In Buck v. Bell, the majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled that Virginia authorities were allowed to operate on Carrie Buck under a law which provided for the sterilization of "imbeciles" and the mentally ill. As it turned out, Buck had not actually been mentally ill - her family had institutionalized her in order to hide the fact that a relative had raped her, resulting in a pregnancy. It was the birth of this child which caused Virginia authorities to sterilize Buck in order to ensure that she would not have any more, but in time the child turned out to have above-average intelligence. |
| 1936 | Doctors and birth control advocates pushed for the importation of birth control devices from Japan. In the case United States v. One Package, judge Augustus Hand argued that had Congress been more aware of the dangers of pregnancy and the safety of contraceptive devices, it would not have passed the Comstock law back in 1873. |
| 1937 | Because of the efforts of James McLester, head of the American Medical Association, the AMA dropped its official opposition to birth control. Roman Catholic members of the AMA objected to this change. |
| 1938 | English courts forced a liberalization of abortion laws. Dr. Aleck William Bourne, a well-known obstetrician and gynecologist, was acquitted after performing an abortion on a fourteen-year-old girl who had become pregnant after having been raped. |
| 1943 | In the case Commonwealth v. Wheeler, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that a state law prohibiting abortions did not include those abortions performed "by a physician in good faith believing it necessary to save the life of the women or to prevent serious impairment of her mental or physical health, providing that his judgment corresponds with the general opinion of competent practitioners in the community in which he resides." |
| 1959 | A presidential commission argued that information on birth control and family planning should be made available to people in third world nations on demand. Pressure from Roman Catholics, however, caused the government to refuse to provide any direct aid to such efforts. |
| 1962 |
Forty-two states still restricted abortions to when it would save the life of the
mother, although it was rarely defined just when that should qualify. Only eight
states allowed for other exceptions, like the health of the mother.
The growing incidents of women who gave birth to deformed babies due to using the drug thalidomide caused many to call upon state governments to reexamine abortion laws. |
| 1965 | In the case of People v. Abarbanel, the California Supreme Court ruled that a doctor could not be prohibited from performing an abortion if he honestly believed that the mother would otherwise commit suicide. |
| 1966 | A conference called by Betty Friedan resulted in the formation of the National Organization for Women, NOW. |
| 1968 | Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical "Humanae Vitae," repeating the church's ban on all forms of artificial contraceptives. |
| 1970 |
Medicaid funded from the federal government began to be used by the states for
hundreds of birth control counseling and family planning centers. Abortions were
also funded, but only if the mother's life was at risk.
Hawaii became the first state to repeal its criminal abortion laws. |
| March, 1970 | The New York State Assembly passed a bill which allowed abortion without any restrictions at all. |
| 1970 | A federal court in Wisconsin found the state's anti-abortion law to be unconstitutional based upon the privacy right described in the earlier Griswold case. |
| January 8, 1971 | President Richard Nixon signed a congressional act repealing the District of Columbia's anti-abortion law. |
| January 1972 | Gallup polls showed that 57 percent of people favored leaving decisions about abortion to a woman and her doctor. Even 54 percent of Roman Catholics agreed with this position. |
| February, 1973 | The American Bar Association adopted a resolution which advocated allowing abortion on demand at any point during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. |
| August, 1972 | Gallup polls revealed that 64 percent of the general public and 56 percent of Roman Catholics favored leaving the decision about an abortion to a woman and her doctor. |
| January 22, 1973 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Jane Roe v. Henry Wade and Mary Doe v. Bolton that women had a right to an abortion. According to the court, anti-abortion laws violated a woman's "right to privacy" and that a human embryo or fetus should not be considered a "person" with civil rights. |
| November, 1972 | Michigan and North Dakota referenda which would have repealed anti-abortion laws were defeated by large margins. |
| 1976 | An amendment to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare appropriations bill was introduced by Henry Hyde, a conservative legislator from Illinois. This amendment prohibited federal Medicaid funds from being used on abortion except when the woman's life was in danger. According to Planned Parenthood, this resulted in a decrease in the number of federally funded abortions, from 294,600 in 1977 to 165 in 1990. |
| 1977 | In a series of cases (Maher v. Roe, Beal v. Doe and Poelker v. Doe), the Supreme Court upheld the rights of local governments to restrict the funding of abortions, even in the first trimester. Women may have had a right to seek an abortion, but not even the poorest of women should expect the government to help pay for it. |
| 1979 | In Bellotti vs. Baird, the Supreme Court overturned a Massachusetts law requiring parental consent for abortions sought by women under age 18. |
| 1980 | In Harris vs. McRae, the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment which prohibited the use of Medicaid funds for abortions except to save a woman's life. |
| 1988 | The radical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue was founded by Randall Terry. |
| 1989 | In Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, the Supreme Court ruled that a Missouri law barring the use of public money and public facilities for abortions and prohibiting abortions by public employees was constitutional. |
| 1992 | In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law mandating a 24-hour waiting period, anti-abortion counseling, and parental consent for minors. |
| 1993 |
Rev. David Trosch, a Roman Catholic priest, drew national attention for
attempting to publish a "Justifiable Homicide" cartoon which advocated the murder
of abortionists. As a result, the Catholic Church relieved Trosch of all pastoral duties.
President Clinton lifted a "gag rule" which forbade doctors in federally funded clinics from mentioning abortion as an option. |
| March 10, 1993 | Michael Griffin shot and killed Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida. This was the first murder of a doctor by an anti-abortion activist. |
| May, 1994 | President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. This new law made the clocking of reproductive health care providers a federal crime. |
