Population Studies

A Journal of Demography

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Attitudes to Abortion in America, 1800–1973

R. Sauer

To cite this article: R. Sauer (1974) Attitudes to Abortion in America, 1800–1973, Population
Studies, 28:1, 53-67, DOI: 10.1080/00324728.1974.10404578

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Over the past decade abortion 1 has become a subject of considerable attention and controversy
in living rooms, legislatures, courts, and pulpits throughout America. Despite this recent attention,
to date there has been no systematic attempt to trace how Americans historically have felt toward
abortion. To help fill the void, this paper will attempt to sketch, by an examination of the
professional and popular literature of the time, American attitudes toward abortion from the
early nineteenth century to the present. Among the questions to be delved into are: Has the use of
abortion changed significantly since 1800? Have the ethics of abortion changed significantly
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What have been the changes in the legal attitude
towards abortion since 1800, and what may be some possible factors accounting for this change?

1800-1820
The literature on abortion in the early years of the nineteenth century is very limited. While
part of the reason for this may be prudery, statistical and other evidence suggests that there was
little occasion to comment on abortion; abortion was probably not a subject that even entered
the minds of most early Americans.
Abortion seems to have been particularly little practised by married women. Franklin esti-
mated that the average eighteenth-century American family consisted of eight children, 2 and
estimates of the crude birth rate early in the nineteenth century show it to be in the upper 40s
and 50s, 3 which, using Bogue and Palmore's conversion table, indicates that the average woman
bore about seven children in her lifetime. 4 With such a large family, it is quite unlikely that the
average American wife made much use of abortion.
Beck, perhaps the earliest American to observe the frequency of abortion, implied that
abortion was little sought among married women. His only comment on the frequency of marital
abortion was that wives 'sometimes' resorted to the act to avoid a repetition of 'peculiarly severe'
labour pains which they may have suffered previously. 5
Owing to the stigma of illegitimacy, abortion logically would have been proportionately
more used to end non-marital pregnancies, and Beck suggested that this was the case when he
stated that abortion (and infanticide) was 'too frequently' practised by single women 6 (what
'too frequently' meant in terms of actual abortion incidence is, of course, anyone's guess).
Men writing in the pre-Civil War era were a little more exacting in their observations of the
abortion frequency early in the century, and they implied that both marital and non-marital
abortion were uncommon during the early 1800s. Reese, in 1857, declared that abortion was
'scarcely known to the generation of our fathers',? and a Troy, New York doctor, in 1860 wrote
that 40 years previously abortion was a 'rare and secret occurrence'.8
1 Unless otherwise noted, the term abortion in this paper refers only to abortions which are voluntarily sought by
a pregnant woman.
2 Cited by George J. Engleman, 'Education Not the Cause of Race Decline', Popular Science Monthly, 69
(June 1903), p. 177.
3 J. Potter, 'The Growth of Population in America 1700-1860', in D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley (eds.),
Population in History (London: Edward Arnold, 1965), p. 672.
4 Cited by Donald J. Bogue, Principles of Demography (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969), p. 662.
5 John B. Beck, An Inaugural Dissertation 011 Infanticide (New York: J. Seymour, 1817), p. 35.
6 Ibid., p. 84.
7 D. Meredith Reese, 'Report on Infant Mortality in Large Cities', Transactions ofthe American Medical Associa-
tion, 12 (1857), p. 98.
8 Quoted by Horatio R. Storer, On Criminal Abortion in America (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1860), p. 30.

53
Population Studies, 28, 1. Printed in Great Britain
54 R. SAUER

The law regarding abortion in the earliest decades of the Republic was in most instances
quite permissive. Imitating the British common law, the American common law failed to recognize
abortion before quickening as a crime (quickening being the time when a woman first feels the
stirring of the foetus, which rarely occurs before the sixteenth week of pregnancy). After quicken-
ing, abortion was copsidered a crime punishable with a fine and imprisonment. 9

1820-1900
Before the mid-century a revolution in the fertility attitudes of many American women had begun.
The average American wife early in the century accepted, if not prized, large numbers of children,
but as mid-century approached a rapidly growing number of women increasingly saw numerous
children as a burden to be avoided, and this attitude continued to spread throughout the last half
of the century.
Statistically illustrating this change of attitude was the rapid decline of the crude birth rate
in the last three quarters of the century. In Thompson and Whelpton's estimate, it was 52·8
in 1820; in 1850 it was 43'3, and in 1890 it was 31'5. 10 The rate would have declined even more
had it not been for the high fertility of the flood of immigrants who began to arrive in the 1840s.
Spengler, for example, computed the gross fertility rate of foreign-born Massachusetts women to
be about twice that of native Massachusetts women throughout the last half ot the 1800S. 11
Paralleling the decline of fertility was an almost geometric increase of abortion literature
during the second third of the century, and most of it reported a large increase in the use of
abortion.
Among the first to observe publicly that abortion was a rather common phenomenon
was Professor Hodge of the University of Pennsylvania, who in an 1839 lecture first saw it
necessary to prepare his students for the numerous abortion requests they would receive. 12
In 1838 America's best-known abortionist, 'Madame Restell', started her trade in New York
City, and in one newspaper advertisement for an abortifacient (which were to become very
common) she claimed that in her first year of sales hundreds of married women availed themselves
of her product. 13 Glover, in 1846, also spoke of a widespread resort to abortion/ 4 and by 1859
abortion had become so prevalent that the American Medical Association felt compelled to put
out a statement discouraging its use (as it did again in 1871),15
The 1860s and 1870s were the peak period of comment on abortion during the nineteenth
century. In 1860, Dr Storer reported that 15 women had approached him for abortions within one
six-month period. 16 After the Civil War there were reported to be 400 abortoria in New York
City alone,17 and at the same time the New York Times found the abortion trade to exist in
every part of the city, 'from a palacial mansion on Fifth Avenue down to wretched chambers in
9 Beck, op. cit., in footnote 5, p. 88. See also Eugene Quay, 'Justifiable Abortion', Georgetown Law Journal, 49
(Spring 1961), p. 481.
10 Bogue, op. cit., in footnote 4, p. 680.
11 Joseph J. Spengler, 'The Decline in the Birth Rate of the Foreign Born', Scientific Monthly, 32 (January 1931),
p.56.
12 Hugh L. Hodge, Foeticide or Criminal Abortion (Philadelphia: Livingston and Blake, 1872), p. 3.
13 Robert Sneddon, 'The Notorious Madame Restell', New Yorker, 17 (15 November 1941), p. 46. Undoubtedly,
most abortifacients were frauds, but, owing to the large number of 'false' pregnancies, many women thought them
to be effective. Most authorities claimed that there were no abortifacients which would induce abortion without
causing grave injury to a pregnant woman. Wharton and Stills, however, noted the effective use of abortifacients
without mentioning any harmful side effects. See Wharton and Stills' Medical Jurisprudence (Philadelphia: Hay and
Brothers, 1884), Vol. II, p. 62.
14 Robert Dale Owen with alterations and additions by Ralph Glover, Owen's Moral Philosophy: or a Brief
and Plain Treatise on the Population Question (New York: R. Glover, 1846), p. 112.
15 Cited by Storer, p. 74; D. A. O'Donnell et al., 'Report on Criminal Abortion', Transactions of the American
Medical Association, 22 (1871), pp. 239-258.
16 Storer, p. 30.
17 John Todd, Serpents in the Dove's Nest (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1867), p. 4.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 55
the slums of Chatham Street' .18 In 1870, Nebinger polled 59 Philadelphia doctors on the fre-
quency of abortion and all felt that its frequency was rising. Nebinger himself felt that the inci-
dence of abortion was then at 'epidemic' proportions. 19
In the last decades of the century there continued to be reports of widespread abortion. An
1881 Michigan report ~ased on correspondence with nearly 100 physicians estimated that nearly
one-third of Protestant pregnancies ended in abortion,z° and the number of newspaper advertise-
ments for abortifacients serves as an indication of the size of the professional abortion trade in
large cities towards the end of the century: one edition of an 1891 Boston Globe contained thirteen
advertisements which offered 'effective and painless remedies' to 'women in trouble'. 21
Nineteenth-century commentators felt that abortion was primarily an urban phenomenon,
most concentrated in the north-east. Zincke, an English observer, wrote that abortion was reputed
to be most common along the Atlantic Coast, although in every large city throughout America
where he inquired the use of abortion was freely admitted,22 and Todd said that abortion was
most common in New England, Pennsylvania, and New York. In the West, Todd felt, the abortion
rate was low, as women 'prided themselves in their brood'.23
Abortion in the nineteenth century appears to have been concentrated in the middle and upper
classes, and even with the stigma of illegitimacy, many writers felt that abortion was more common
among the married than the unmarried. Nebinger, for example, referred to married women as
the 'chief offenders', and he claimed that the act found 'its patrons in large proportion in the
higher grades of society'.24 One New York City abortionist in 1871 even boasted of the high
status of many of her clients: 'We have Senators, Congressmen and all sorts of the politicians
bring some of the first women in the land here. Many - very many - aristocratic married women
come here or we attend them in private homes.'25
Predominantly comprising the lower classes of nineteenth-century America were recently
arrived, generally Catholic immigrants, and among this highly fertile group abortion was reported
to be rarely practised. Todd quoted an Irish-American who said: 'We like large families of child-
ren, but American women kill theirs before they are born',26 and Allan observed that it was the
'strictly Americans' who almost solely sought abortions. 27 Numerous doctors related that
they rarely treated Catholics for abortion complications, and one physician commented that
while hundreds of Protestants admitted to having abortions, only seven Catholics had ever
done SO.28
Several observers saw the increase of abortion emanating from a growth of materialism and
social striving, which seemingly was then largely confined to the Protestant population. According
to Zincke, abortion was common because maternity often came out second best to other more
pleasurable activities which consumed time and money: 'They [young couples] cannot give up
their autumn excursions, they cannot give up balls, and dresses and concerts and carriages.'29
18 New York Times, 3 November 1870, p. 4. Another edition of the Times put the number of professional
abortionists in New York City at 200, one of whom was reported to have received 400 letters a day requesting
abortion pills (New York Times, 23 August 1871, p. 6).
19 Andrew Nebinger, Criminal Abortion: Its Extent and Prevention (Philadelphia: Collins Printer, 1870), pp.
4,9.
20 Samuel J. Holmes, The Trend o/the Race (New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1921), p. 169. Doctors reported
that 17 per cent of pregnancies were aborted, and the authors of the report doubled the percentage to account
for what was believed to be the patients' reticence to report such an act. An Ohio report of about the same time
reported a similar percentage of pregnancies aborted (Arthur Calhoun, A Social History 0/ the American Family
(New York: Barnes and Noble, 1945), Vol. IlI, p. 243).
21 Quoted by Brevard Sinclair, The Crowning Sin o/the Age (Boston: H. L. Hastings, 1891), p. 52.
22 F. Barham Zincke, Last Winter in the United States (London: John Murray, 1868), p. 292.
23 Todd, op. cit., in footnote 17, p. 13.
24 Nebinger, op. cit., in footnote 19, pp. 14-15.
25 New York Times, 23 August 1871, p. 6.
26 Todd, op. cit., in footnote 17, p. 6.
27 Nathan Allan, 'Changes in Population', Harper's Magazine, 38 (February 1869), p. 390.
28 Nebinger, op. cit., in footnote 19, pp. 21, 25. 29 Zincke, op. cit., in footnote 22, p. 292.
56 R. SAUER

Engelman, at the turn of the twentieth century, reiterated this view, asserting that 'the assumption
of a false social position, the struggle for attainment of luxury even more than its possession
leads to the limitation of the family'.30 Allan felt that the growing anti-natalism was due to
America's transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society. With manufacturing
and business, womt?n became immersed in 'pursuits of mere pleasure and fashion', and children
became burdensome, confining, and expensive. 31
In the minds of some, the emerging women's rights movement was also associated with the
desire for fewer children and consequently a greater need for abortion. Kenney saw the movement
instilling 'ambitions inconsistent with maternity',32 and an 1869 Catholic World opposed women's
suffrage because it would draw women away from their homes and children. Women would repress
their 'maternal instincts', and the 'horrible crime of infanticide before birth now becoming so
fearfully prevalent ... will become more prevalent still'.33
A survey of the literature indicates that by mid-century two contrasting viewpoints towards
abortion had crystallized. On the one hand, a substantial segment of the population, which
included many persons who held influential positions in society, opposed abortion in the strongest
terms. The medical profession was the most vociferous of all in its opposition to abortion; in
addition to many individuals publishing works expressing alarm over what they saw as a spreading
blight, the AMA and other medical associations issued policy statements that abhorred abortion.
Doctors were not the only group strongly to oppose abortion. As would be expected, some
religious leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, were highly vocal in their opposition,34 and
abortion was regarded as an unacceptable means of fertility limitation even by the founders of
the American birth control movement. In fact, one of the selling points of the early 'birth con-
trollers' was that contraception would minimize the use of abortion; as early as 1846 one birth
control advocate was predicting that widespread contraceptive use would lead to the virtual
disappearance of what he considered a revolting crime. 35
Still others expressed strongly negative opinions about abortion. Allan saw a morality con-
doning abortion as 'perverted',36 and in the 1860s and 1870s the New York Times waged a
vigorous campaign against New York's burgeoning abortion industry. One additional observer
compared abortion with 'Herod's massacre of the innocents',37 and such a sentiment was typical
of writers of the day; not one statement by any nineteenth-century commentator can be found
which was in any way sympathetic to women desiring abortions. 38
While the literature universally condemned abortion, all writers agreed that a large segment
of the public did not regard abortion as such a heinous practice. In 1857, the Suffolk County
(Massachusetts) Medical Society said that 'the present morale of the community condones
abortion',39 and Reese complained that many abortionists were well known to the police, yet
these abortionists continued to take their seats at the opera and 'drive their splendid equipages
upon our avenues in proud munificence'.4o
In the 1860s Storer and Heard declared that public opinion did not regard abortion as a
crime,41 and Rose reported that 'there is a crime of the foulest order that is regarded without
Engelman, lac. cit., in footnote 2, p. 180.
30 31 Allan, lac. cit., in footnote 27, p. 390.
Quoted by Calhoun, op. cit., in footnote 20, Vol. III, p. 245.
32
33 Orestes A. Brownson, 'The Woman Question', Catholic World, 9 (May 1869), p. 151.
34 See, for example, Hodge, op. cit., in footnote 12, p. 6; Sinclair, op. cit., in footnote 21; Nebinger, op. cit.,
in footnote 19, p. 25.
35 Glover, op. cit., in footnote 14, p. 111.
36 Allan, lac. cit., in footnote 27, p. 390.
37 Quoted by Calhoun, op. cit., in footnote 20, Vol. III, p. 242.
38 The only printed dissatisfaction with the prevailing anti-abortion morality during the nineteenth century
found by this writer was a letter sent to Sinclair which went: 'I maintain that until we see our way clear to take
care of another love, until then we are justified in not having it' (quoted by Sinclair, op. cit., in footnote 21, p. 36).
39 Suffolk District Medical Society, Committee on Criminal Abortion, May 4, 1857, p. 4.
40 Reese, lac. cit. in footnote 7, p. 97.
41 Horatio Storer and Franklin Heard, Criminal Abortion (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1868), p. 7.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 57
horror by a large number of the community'.42 According to Todd, some women even boasted
of having had abortions. 43
Apparently, the considerable public unconcern about abortion continued during the later
years of the century, for in 1891 Sinclair said that in reference to abortion 'society is indifferent,
the Church asleep and the public conscience is dead'.44
Of course, a review of the literature shows that a sizeable segment of the nineteenth-century
population was greatly concerned with the widespread use of abortion, and this concern was
made manifest in the great flurry of legal activity concerning abortion during the last three-
quarters of the century. Beginning with Connecticut in 1821, nearly all the States and territories
had passed strong statute laws outlawing abortion before the century was over. Sanctions varied
considerably, but most States prescribed punishments consisting of a fine (usually of about
$500-1,000) and several years imprisonment. The only instance in which any State law permitted
abortion was when a woman's life was endangered by her pregnancy.
Continuing the common law's view of foetal development, at least one-third of the initial
State laws distinguished between a quickened and an unquickened foetus, the punishment for
the abortion of a quickened foetus being harsher than for the abortion of an unquickened one.
A very few States initially did not punish abortion before quickening at all. As the century con-
tinued, many States abandoned the distinction based on quickening and punished abortion at
any stage of pregnancy in the same way.45
There are several likely explanations for the appearance of more restrictive abortion laws in
the nineteenth century. One reason for the passage of at least some of the earliest State laws is
undoubtedly imitation. Even after independence, American lawmakers often followed trends in
the British law, and early in the nineteenth century Parliament passed a series of more restrictive
abortion laws whose influence can be seen in some of the earliest American laws; the wording of
the 1821 Connecticut law, for example, is in some respects very similar to that of Britain's 1803
anti-abortion law.
Means and others have argued that since abortion was hazardous, like all other types of
surgery in the l800s (because of the absence of antiseptics and the low level of professional
competence), the underlying rationale for anti-abortion laws was the protection of maternal
health rather than the protection of the foetus.
As partial evidence for his thesis, Means cites an 1828 New York legislative report which
recommended banning most types of surgery because of a perceived increase of unnecessary and
dangerous operations which led to many injuries and deaths. Although abortion was not specific-
ally mentioned in the report, Means inferred that New York's 1830 anti-abortion law represented
one element in the legislators' campaign to halt the increasingly reckless use of all kinds of
dangerous operations, of which abortion was one type. 46
Other evidence for Means's contention comes from nineteenth-century writers. In 1858, a
New Jersey judge stated that the purpose of his State's anti-abortion law was 'not to prevent the
procuring of abortion so much as to guard the health and life of the mother against the con-
sequences of such attempts',47 and two years later Storer commented that the common law and
many State laws almost wholly ignored early foetal life and viewed abortion as an offence against
the mother. 48
It would be a gross distortion, however, to believe that all or even most nineteenth-century
laws were mainly attempts to protect women's health. An examination of the statements of those
42 George Rose, The Great Country or, Impressions of America (London: Timsley Brothers, 1868), p. 64.
43 Todd, op. cit. in footnote 17 p. 17. 44 Sinclair, op. cit. in footnote 21 p. 16.
45 For an examination of all American laws up to 1961, see Quay. loco cit. in footnote 9
46 Cyril Means, 'Panel Discussion', in Robert Hall (ed.), Abortion in a Changing World, Proceedings of an
International Conference Commenced in Hot Springs, Virginia, November 17-20, 1968 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1970), Vol. II, p. 138.
47 Ibid., p. 140. 48 Storer, op. cit. in footnote 8 p. 1.
58 R. SAUER

who most loudly urged the passage of restrictive laws during the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth
century indicates that, in the minds of many, safeguarding the mother's health was held to be
secondary to the protection of the foetus as a rationale for anti-abortion laws; many valued foetal
life highly in itself and felt that that this life should be protected by law.
The medical profession was in the forefront of the drive for more restrictive laws, and, while
the dangers of abortion to a woman were almost unfailingly pointed out, the main concern of
doctors was with the safety of the foetus. Storer knew of only 'one exception to medical respect
of foetallife',49 and Nebinger pointed out the profession's concern for the foetus even when the
foetus endangered the mother's life. 50 The few medically qualified abortionists who did exist
were termed a 'morbid excrescence which adhere to a noble stock',51 and a doctor who performed
abortions for reasons other than saving the life of a woman faced certain ostracism from his
professional colleagues.
In addition to individual medical efforts, various medical associations campaigned for more
restrictive anti-abortion laws, mainly on the basis of foetal rights. The AMA, the Suffolk District
Medical Society, the Medical Society of New York and other associations called for the im-
position of stiffer penalties for abortion or for greater enforcement of existing laws, and their
terming abortion as 'infant murder' leaves no doubt that they valued even early foetal life highly.
Others who were influential in passing restrictive laws were also greatly concerned with
foetal safety. Religious opposition to abortion was primarily based on foetal rights, with numerous
Protestant and Catholic leaders agreeing with the Episcopalian Bishop of New York's description
of abortion as 'ante-natal infanticide'.52 The New York Times campaign against abortion was
also based on a high valuation of foetal life, as illustrated by the Times statement that through
abortion 'thousands of human beings are thus murdered before they have seen the light of the
world,.53
One can infer from an analysis of nineteenth-century laws that the safety of the foetus was a
major concern of many State legislatures. A law which has maternal health as its sale or main
consideration is not likely to be worded in such a way that the human status of the foetus is
recognized, since such recognition would also require that the foetus be given human rights
protected by law. In a law where the concern is with the woman's health, a woman is likely
to be labelled as 'pregnant' rather than as 'being with child' or some other phrase which gives a
human status to the foetus. Although a number of the initial State laws contained a distinction
based on quickening which gave lower value to early foetal life, the large majority of State laws
never made this distinction, and most of these laws referred to a woman as 'being with child'
or some similar phrase which attributed a human status to the foetus. Furthermore, many of the
States which initially had this distinction written into their law later dropped it and also referred
to a woman at any period of her pregnancy as 'being with child'.
Influencing the passage of more restrictive laws without a distinction based on quickening
were philosophical and biological developments regarding the creation and evolution of pre-
natal life. Nineteenth-century thought on how pre-natal life developed drifted away from the
previously widely accepted belief that human life was dormant like an unsprouted seed, until the
mother could first sense foetal stirrings and moved towards the belief that a separate entity
was alive and active from the earliest indications of pregnancy.
Rather than accept the view that at quickening a qualitative change came over pre-natal
life, increasing numbers in the nineteenth century came to view pre-natal development as involving
only a quantitative change. This changing view of foetal development led to a greater valuation
of early pre-natal life in the minds of many, and accordingly the quickening distinction was
gradually dropped so that early foetal life would be more protected by law.
The segment of society which was most responsible for the abandonment of the quickening
49 Ibid., p. 58. 50 Nebinger, op. cit. in footnote 19 p. 21. 51 O'Donnell et at., toc. cit. in footnote 15 p. 241.
52 Nebinger, p. 25. 53 New York Times, 23 August, 1871, p. 6.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 59
distinction in the law was the medical profession. While at one time accepting the quickening
theory itself, the profession made strong efforts to obtain legislative changes in that regard, once
it had considered the theory as erroneous, as the words of Hodge show:
'If ... the profession in former times, from the imperfect state of their physiological knowledge,
had, in any degree, undervalued the importance of foetal life, they have fully redeemed their
error and they now call upon the legislatures of our land ... to stay the progress of this des-
tructive evil of criminal abortion.'54
Besides concern for maternal and foetal safety, there are additional explanations for the
opposition to abortion and the passage of more restrictive laws. For one thing, ethnic and
religious fears may have helped inspire negative attitudes to abortion. The decline of native fertility
was alarming some Protestants, particularly in light of the very high fertility of the vast number
of immigrants who poured into America beginning with the 1840s. Fears of 'race suicide' and
Catholic domination arose in the minds of some Protestants, and, since abortion was seen to be
a major factor in the decline of Protestant fertility, the suppression of abortion was one logical
remedy for Protestant fears. In an 1891 anti-abortion sermon the Reverend Sinclair appealed to
these fears when he told his parishioners: 'New England is lifting her hands to-day with horror
at the thought of Catholic domination. We are told that the Roman Catholics are going to possess
New England. Through your sin [of abortion] they may do SO.'55
Another explanation for the appearance of anti-abortion laws was a fear that widespread
unrestricted abortion would lead to a disintegration of the moral fabric of society. With unres-
tricted abortion a major deterrent to non-marital sex would be eliminated and licentiousness
might become rampant.
The literature indicates, however, that the fear of sexual license was probably only a secondary
factor in the passage of more restrictive laws. While undoubtedly some wanted an unwed preg-
nant girl to 'pay for her sin' by bearing a child, many writers showed understanding of an un-
married girl's attempt to procure an abortion, although they still could not condone it. What
really disturbed writers was abortion by married women. As Marcy remarked: 'We can see easily
how the unmarried woman becomes desperate and loses her fine sense of right, but for the married
woman it is absolutely inexcusable.'56
Despite reports that abortion was increasingly utilized in the nineteenth century, there is
no evidence that anyone spoke out against the restrictive laws. Undoubtedly, part of the reason
for this was the age-old anti-abortion sentiment of Christianity. Even with its acceptance of the
quickening distinction, Christianity saw abortion as wrong at any time, and while its influence
may not have been strong enough to prevent many women from having abortions, Christianity
probably continued to instil a sense of shame and guilt in many persons which prevented them
from speaking out publicly in favour of abortion. 57
Even if a woman did not associate abortion with guilt and shame and felt that restrictive
laws were unjust, the position of women and the attitudes toward sex during the nineteenth
century inhibited women from publicly voicing their opinions. Women were, of course, conditioned
not to take part in political decisions, and even if a woman privately questioned restrictive abortion
54 Hodge, op. cit. in footnote 12 p. 5. Some held the old quickening distinction to be responsible for the casual-
ness with which many women sought abortions, and Nebinger predicted that once women were informed of recent
genetic findings they would give early foetal life the respect it deserved, a prediction that was not to be borne out in
later decades (Nebinger, op. cit. in footnote 19 p. 19).
55 Sinclair, op. cit. in footnote 21 p. 18.
56 Henry Marcy, 'Education as a Factor in the Prevention of Criminal Abortion and Illegitimacy', Journal o/the
American Medical Association, 47 (8 December 1906), p. 1889.
57 Sinclair, however, published a letter from a doctor which indicated that some women approached abortion
without guilt. After hearing an anti-abortion sermon, one woman went home and attempted to abort herself,
remarking that she would 'see whether a clergyman should interfere with her liberty in such a matter' (Sinclair,
op. cit., in footnote 21, p. 52).
 60 R. SAUER

laws she was likely to have felt powerless to do anything to change them. Victorian reticence in
speaking on sexual matters would further inhibit persons from speaking out on abortion.
Even those women who most strongly rejected the values of society, the feminists, seemed not
to have questioned the abortion ethic and law then current. In fact, nineteenth-century feminism
seems to have larg~ly ignored matters relating to fertility limitation. The only feminist reference
to fertility control found by this writer (admittedly not an historian of feminism) was an 1891
address by Blatch entitled 'Voluntary Motherhood'. While stating that women had the right to
control their fertility, Blatch was obscure as to how they were to do this; no mention was made at
all of contraception or abortion. 58

1900-1940

Fertility continued to decline in the early decades of this century, particularly in the 1920s and
1930s, the crude birth rate falling from about 30 in 1900 to under 18 in the mid-1930s. More
detailed analysis showed that in many areas it was a steep decline of immigrant fertility, rather
than a continued fall in the fertility of the native-born, which led to the continued decline of the
crude birth rate in the early twentieth century.
Spengler's analysis of Massachusetts figures, for example, showed that by the late 1920s
the fertility of immigrant women, which was once double that of native American women, was
approaching the low level of that of native women. 59
Accompanying the decline of fertility in the first three decades of this century were only
scattered references to abortion, but they all agreed that its use was very common. 60 In the 1930s,
a period of very low fertility, the medical press again gave considerable attention to abortion,
and this renewed interest gave rise to numerous studies which gave varied estimates of the abortion
frequency of white married women, the reported percentage of pregnancies aborted ranging from
2 to 22 per cent (the latter figure being obtained from respondents at a New York City birth
control clinic).61 Utilizing data from other studies, Taussig estimated in 1936 that the national
ratio of abortions to births was 1: 3 (Taussig included in this ratio spontaneous abortions, which
he believed comprised 25-30 per cent of all abortions).62
As in the nineteenth century, it was widely believed in the 1930s that abortion was consider-
ably more common in urban areas than in rural ones. Taussig estimated the abortion/birth ratio
to be 1: 5 in rural areas and 1: 2·5 in urban ones (the ratio again including spontaneous abortions).63
In some large cities the number of abortions was reported to exceed that of births. One doctor
claimed knowing 75 full-time New York City abortionists who, operating at the reasonable rate of
eight abortions a day, would have performed more abortions than there were births in the city.64
Numerous writers of the 1930s saw an increase in abortion during the early decades of this
century, particularly in the 1930s. Taussig estimated that the ratio of abortions to births had more
than doubled since 1900,65 and Spengler attributed the rapid decline of foreign-born fertility to
58 Harriet Stanton Blatch, 'Voluntary Motherhood', in Aileen S. Kraditor (ed.), Selected Writings in the History
of Feminism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968), pp. 167-175.
59 Spengler, loco cit., in footnote 11, p. 56.
60 For example, see Marcy, loco cit., in footnote 56, p. 1889; Frederick A. Blossin, 'Birth Control', Birth Control
Review, 2 (February 1971), p. 215; K. Sellers Kennard, 'Criminal Abortion', Medico-Legal Journal, 39 (January-
February 1922), pp. 7-16; Frank Wynne, 'Abortion', Medico-LegalJournal, 39 (January-February 1922), pp. 21-23.
61 Dorothy Wiehl, 'A Summary of Data on Reported Incidence of Abortion', Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly,
16 (January 1938), pp. 80-87; Regina Stix and Dorothy Wiehl, 'Abortion and the Public Health', American Journal
of Public Health, 28 (May 1938), p. 622; Endre K. Brinner and Louis Newton, 'Abortions in Relation to Births
in 10,609 Pregnancies', American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 38 (July 1939), p. 85.
62 Frederick Taussig, Abortion, Spontaneous and Induced (St Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1936), p. 388.
63 Ibid., p. 25.
64 B. B. Tolnoi, 'The Abortion Racket,' Forum, 94 (September 1935), p. 176.
65 Taussig, op. cit., in footnote 62, p. 388.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 61
increased use of contraception and abortion. 66 Tolnoi typified the belief that abortion use was
particularly sought in the 1930s when he stated: 'Though the depression did not beget this
evil, the meagre years since 1929 have certainly lent it impetus.'67
Americans of the 1900-1930 period still seemed to retain divergent attitudes towards abortion.
On the one hand, all of the limited abortion literature of the period remained highly critical of
abortion. Medical journals retained their negative tone towards the operation, and those in the
birth control movement retained the traditional Christian view of abortion (a 1917 issue of the
Birth Control Review termed abortion 'child murder').68
On the other hand, writers continued to observe that a sizeable segment of the population
did not share their sentiments. Philbrick, in 1904, claimed that Americans were indifferent to abor-
tion,69 and two years later Marcy observed that 'the product of early impregnation is of so little
importance that abortion will not be seriously established as a criminal offense'.70 Nevertheless,
nearly all those who condoned and may have sought abortions themselves still continued to
'pay lip service' to a strong anti-abortion ethic.
Possibly the only American early in this century not to 'pay lip service' to this ethic was W. J.
Robinson. In a 1911 address to the Eastern Medical Society Robinson justified abortion in
some pre-marital pregnancies, and thereby apparently became the first American puplic1y to voice
the opinion that abortion might be permissible in an instance other than to save the life of a
pregnant woman. 71
Another noteworthy event before World War I was the American publication of Sex in
Relation to Society by the English psychologist Havelock Ellis. Although Ellis, in his 1910 work,
stated that the underlying rationale for prohibiting most abortions was 'fairly reasonable', he
gave an extensive and sympathetic review of European writers who sought the abolition of res-
trictive laws, and this was perhaps the first time the American public was presented with a view
which challenged the prevailing anti-abortion ethic. 72
During the 1920s no break with the traditional morality could be found in the American
literature, but in the 1930s a major breakthrough in the history of American abortion attitudes
occurred. In that decade of low fertility and apparent high use of abortion a substantial number
of Americans for the first time began publicly to question the traditional restrictive ethic and law
regarding abortion.
Ironically, it was some members of the medical profession who were most vocal in justifying
abortion (although overall the profession still overwhelmingly rejected abortion). In 1933,
Robinson went far beyond his 1911 position and published what seems to be the first American
work which stripped foetal life of all human rights and called for the repeal of all restrictions upon
abortion except those which provided for maternal health 73 (later proponents of legalization
would also include this provision). Other respected doctors, such as Taussig and Rongy, did not
quite support abortion on request but they advocated the legalization of abortion for a variety of
health, eugenic, social, and economic reasons. 74
Changing attitudes were also first seen in the popular press. Mass circulation magazines
were less reluctant to discuss abortion than previously (the subject was not listed in the Readers'
66 Spengler, loco cit., in footnote 11, p. 57.
67 Tolnoi, loco cit., in footnote 64, p. 177.
68 Charles Herman Chapman, 'Have We a Son Named Samuel', Birth Control Review, 2 (March 1917), p. 9.
69 Cited Anna Kross, 'Abortion Problems Seen in Criminal Courts', in Harold Taylor (ed.), The Abortion
Problem, Proceedings of the National Committee on Maternal Health, June 19-20, 1942 (Baltimore: Williams and
Wilkins, 1944), p. 107.
70 March, loco cit., in footnote 56, p. 1889.
71 W. J. Robinson, The Law Against Abortion (New York: Eugenics Publishing Company, 1933), p. 28.
72 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology ofSex, Vol. VI, Sex in Relation to Society (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis
Co., 1910), pp. 601-610.
73 Robinson, loco cit., in footnote 71.
74 Taussig, op. cit., in footnote 62, p. 444; Abraham J. Rongy, Abortion: Legal or lllega!? (New York: Vanguard
Press, 1933), p. 200.
62 R. SAUER

Index to Periodical Literature from 1900 to 1930), and while most periodicals supported the
traditional anti-abortion ethic, a number questioned that ethic for the first time. Magazines as
varied as Colliers and the New Republic published articles and letters urging a liberalization of the
law, and while the majority of writers supported only limited legalization, such as cases involving
rape or threats to hyalth, several writers went further and urged the total legalization of abortion. 75

1940-1960
During World War II fertility rose slightly, and then in the late 1940s and 1950s America experi-
enced a baby boom, the crude birth rate of 1957 being almost 50 per cent above the 1936 level
(although it still remained far lower than the rate in the nineteenth century).
Despite the slight rise in fertility, abortion frequency was generally regarded as rising
sharply during the war. One authority estimated the abortion rate to have risen by some 20--40
per cent, owing partly to the mass entrance of women into wartime industry.76
The only data on abortion frequency published in the 1950s with considerable value came
from Kinsey's survey of the reproductive histories of nearly 5,300 white, urban women of high
socio-economic status. The study revealed that there was one abortion for every 2'5 births, but
the finding could not be generalized to the population as a whole, for it was widely believed that
urban, middle and upper-class women 'had considerably more abortions relatively than other
women, just as in earlier years. 77
It may be that in the late 1940s and 1950s the abortion rate declined from that of the 1930s,
given the great rise in fertility. Kinsey's study lends some credence to this possibility; the women
in his study born after 1910 had undergone substantially fewer abortions than those born bet-
ween 1890 and 1910. 78
Even with a possible decline in the rate, abortion certainly continued to be widely practised
in the 1950s. The popular press often carried accounts of large abortion rings which performed
thousands of abortions every year, and the 1955 Arden House Conference on abortion estimated
the nationwide incidence of abortion to be anywhere between 200,000 and 1·2 million per year
(as compared with four million births per year).79
Public attitudes towards abortion in the 1940s appear to have changed little from the
p:t:evious decade. Anti-abortion laws were difficult to enforce, in part because of public indifference
to abortion, 80 yet very few publicly advocated the repeal of all restrictions upon access to abortion.
Indeed, those who expressed any public dissatisfaction with the law in the 1940s remained small
in numbers, and for the most part they continued to seek only a limited broadening of the
conditions under which women were legally entitled to an abortion. At the first national con-
ference on abortion, in 1942, numerous participants urged a liberalization of the law, but the
conference as a whole refused to recommend any changes. 81
During the 1950s abortion on request continued to be largely rejected, but a sizeable and
probably increasing number of persons openly justified the operation for reasons other than to
save the mother's life. Abortion received increasing attention from the popular press, and articles
7S For an example of the advocacy of partial legalization, see Louis Blanchard Kaley, 'The Business of Abortion',
Colliers, 100 (July 1938), p. 37; for an example of the advocacy of complete legalization, see Evelyn Peirce, 'Letters
to the Editor', New Republic, 141 (11 April 1934), p. 245.
76 Time, 6 March 1944, p. 60. See also G. Palmer, 'Your Baby or Your Job', Woman's Home Companion, 70
(October 1943), pp. 4ff.
77 Paul H. Gebhard et al., Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1958), p. 29,
Table 13. The ratio for single women was 5: 1; for married woman it was 1 :4.
78 Ibid., pp. 112, 140.
79 Mary Steichen Calderone (ed.), Abortion in the United States: A Conference Sponsored by the Planned Parent-
hood Federation of America, Inc. (New York: Hoeber-Harper, 1958), p. 180.
80 John Harlan Amen, 'Some Obstacles to Effective Legal Control of Criminal Abortion', in Taylor, op. cit.,
in footnote 69, p. 135.
81 'Discussion', ibid., p. 178.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 63

in publications such as Newsweek and Readers' Digest questioned the existing law, particularly
in relation to 'hardship' cases, such as when pregnancy results from rape. 82 Most of the panel
at the Arden House Conference (whose formation was a further indication of an increased sensi-
tivity to abortion) also felt that there was a need for greater 'flexibility' in the law. 83
Epitomizing the gfrowing feeling that the grounds for a legal abortion should be somewhat
broadened was the model law drawn up by the American Law Institute in 1959. The ALI proposed
legalizing abortion incases when pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, when a pregnancy
threatened the physical or mental health of the mother, and when a child was likely to be born
with serious physical or mental defects. 84
Despite the general trend of more liberal attitudes, official Christian opinion towards
abortion in the 1950s remained the same as a century earlier. In 1951, Pope Pius XII reiterated the
position that abortion, even to save the life of the mother, was murder, 85 and apparently no
Catholic spoke out against this view. Curran's survey of numerous Protestant groups showed that
Protestantism also condemned abortion, except when pregnancy threatened the life ofthe mother.86

1960-1973
By the 1960s the baby boom was ending, and over the past dozen years the crude birth rate
declined to its lowest level in American history (15'6 in 1972). Whether an increase of abortion
is partly responsible for the decline of fertility in the 1960s is uncertain. With easier access to
abortion in the 1970s, however, an increased incidence of abortion very probably has been a
factor in the continuing fertility decline.
The first large-scale statistics of abortions which have high validity became available in the
1970s, and they show abortion to be widely practised, even with a much greater use of contracep-
tives than previously. In 1971, the ratio of reported abortions to births of New York State
residents was more than 1:3 (in New York City it was more than 1:2).87
Accompanying the fertility decline has been a rapid liberalization in the overt public attitude
towards abortion. Perhaps the major precipitator of this change was the case of Sherri Finkbine,
an Arizona wife, who in 1962 desired an abortion because she feared that the thalidomide she
had taken would result in her bearing a deformed child. The refusal to grant her a legal abortion
in America and her subsequent trip to Sweden for the operation were sensationalized by the media,
and the incident seems to have marked the point when the nation as a whole first focussed upon
abortion and when a diffuse dissatisfaction with the law began to crystallize into an organized
movement to change that law.
A 1965 poll showed that a large number of Americans supported a liberalization of the law
for 'hard' reasons, such as Mrs Finkbine's case, while still overwhelmingly rejecting abortion on
request. 87 per cent of some 5,600 women questioned in a national survey approved of abortion
when the mother's health was threatened, 50 per cent when a child was thought likely to be born
deformed, and 52 per cent when pregnancy resulted from rape. Only 8 per cent, however, approved
of abortion for any reason. 88
While only a small percentage of the populace supported abortion on request in 1965, those
82 Newsweek, 25 June 1956, p. 28; M. Sontheimer, 'Important Facts about Abortion', Readers' Digest, 68
(February 1956), pp. 53-56.
83 Calderone (ed.), op. cit., in footnote 79, p. 185.
84 Ruth Roemer, 'Abortion Law Reform and Repeal: Legislative and Judicial Developments', in Carl Reiterman
ed.), Abortion and the Unwanted Child (New York City: Springer Publishing Co., 1971), p. 40.
85 'Notes of the Quarter', Eugenics Review, 53 (January 1952), p. 171.
86 Frank Curran, 'Religious Implications', in Harold Rosen (ed.), Therapeutic Abortion: Medical, Psychiatric,
Legal, Anthropological and Religious Considerations (New York: Julian Press, 1954), pp. 154-155.
87 New York Times, 1 September 1972, p. 23.
88 Charles F. Westoff, Emily C. Moore, and Norman B. Ryder, 'The Structure of Attitudes Toward Abortion'.
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 47 (January 1969), p. 12.
64 R. SAUER

relatively few who did, had already begun to coalesce into active pressure groups, and using the
traditional tactics of pressure groups, such as demonstrations, lectures, and the widespread
dissemination of polemical literature, the newly developed movement rapidly gained strength and
soon was able to help alter public opinion with astonishing rapidity. By the close of the decade
it was evident that public opinion was becoming tolerant of abortion not only for 'hard' reasons
but for any reason. A 1969 Gallup poll revealed that 40 per cent of the adult public supported
the legalization of abortion in pregnancies of twelve weeks' duration or less,89 and in 1972, 46
per cent approved of making any abortion legal under the same condition. 90
Other indicators of a recent liberalization of attitudes are numerous and probably familiar
to most readers. The plethora of abortion literature in the popular and scientific press that
appeared in the 1960s and continued into the 1970s has become increasingly receptive to the idea
of complete legalization, except for the Catholic press. By 1970 factions of many Protestant groups
reversed completely their stand of two decades earlier by calling for the repeal of all restrictions
upon women's access to abortion, and the AMA, which a century earlier had been in the fore-
front of the movement for more restrictive laws, also called for the repeal of restrictive laws.
Further evidence of change is shown by the new feminism's strong espousal of abortion on re-
quest, the New York Times call for the repeal rather than the passage of restrictive laws, and the
establishment of abortion clinics by birth control groups which once abhorred the procedure.
Emanating from the changing public attitudes have been changes in the law. Early in the
1960s the first efforts at liberalization were made, and in 1967 Colorado became the first of
numerous States to pass a moderately liberal statute, permitting abortion along the lines recom-
mended earlier by the American Law Institute. However, the Colorado law and others like it
still prohibited the overwhelming number of women who wanted abortions from having them;
consequently those in the pro-abortion movement, recognizing the increasing public acceptance
of abortion, began to press for the repeal of all restrictions upon women's access to abortion.
After several years of considerable controversy, the first laws permitting abortion on request
were passed, beginning with Hawaii, Alaska, and New York in 1970, and Washington in 1971.
Those who favoured permissive laws also challenged restrictive laws in the courts, and in a
momentous 1973 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that no State had the right to prohibit any
woman from obtaining an abortion in the first six months of pregnancy.91
One can see that over the past two centuries there have been major changes in American
attitudes to abortion. If one can make an accurate inference from the common law, many people
in the Republic's first years probably neither valued early life highly, nor held abortion before
quickening to be a major violation of morality. 92 Nevertheless, the Christian view that all abortion
was wrong must have been a persuasive informal norm, and it appears that most American
women had little motivation for abortion, or any other means of fertility control.
Approaching the mid-nineteenth century, an increasing number of women began to seek
abortions, but for various reasons, among them a greater valuation of early foetal life, many
viewed the trend with alarm and took measures, including legal ones, to suppress the growing
practice.
Despite the passage of more restrictive laws, abortion continued to be widespread and
89 New York Times, 30 November 1969, p. 60.
90 New York Times, 28 January 1973, p. 45.
91 Roe vs. Wade, 93 S. Ct. 705 (1973). The Court permitted States to impose restrictions upon competently per-
formed abortions only during the last trimester of pregnancy (when the foetus is considered likely to be viable),
except in cases when the health of the mother is threatened.
92 Even early in the century, however, there were those who valued early foetal life very highly and urged the
passage of more restrictive laws. Beck in 1817 stated that all abortions could be considered murderous and felt that
laws with a quickening distinction were 'absurd', and 'immoral and unjust' (Beck, pp. 17, 31, 34). Interestingly,
a brief survey of the laws of other Christian nations indicates that the British and American common laws were the
only laws which did not punish early pregnancy abortions at all during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The reasons for this anomaly are unclear.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 65

probably increasing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, almost no
one openly questioned that abortion was wrong and that highly restrictive laws were unjust, until
the 1930s when a very few individuals called for the repeal of all restrictions on abortion, and a
larger but stilI rather limited number of persons called for a broadening of the provisions under
which abortion may be legally performed.
Broadening the terms for a legal abortion continued to become a respectable idea in the
1940s and 1950s, but abortion on demand was stilI rejected by even most of those who supported
some liberalization of the law, despite the fact that abortion had long before been widely adopted
by a sizeable segment of the population.
As the 1960s progressed abortion was increasingly justified on moral grounds (the foetus
was seen by growing numbers as only a 'potential' human being), and the idea oflegalized abortion
won considerable acceptance with great rapidity. The change in public opinion was quickly
reflected in legal changes which culminated in the judicial decision legalizing abortion throughout
the nation.
What factors may help to explain the increased use of abortion and then the increased
acceptance of abortion into the public morality of America? The extrapolation of some basic
socio-demographic theory may help in these matters. As long ago as the nineteenth century, it
was noted that with modernization, i.e. industrialization, urbanization, lower mortality, greater
literacy, etc., people often develop low-fertility values; parents often do not desire more than
two or three children, if that many.
Because of the development oflow-fertility values an increasing number of women seek ways
to limit their fertility, and since abortion, along with abstinence and contraception, is a major
means of fertility control, a rise in the abortion rate during modernization could be
expected.
The American abortion experience bears out this line of thought. Early in its history America
was a rural, agricultural nation with high mortality and relatively little literacy. Under these
conditions fertility was very high and abortion apparently little used. During the nineteenth century
America began to undergo modernization, and paralleling the process was a decline of fertility
and an increase in abortion. In this century social trends in America (greater urbanization and
industrialization, for example) would theoretically encourage the further entrenchment of low-
fertility values and the further use of abortion, and this seems to have been the case.
A change in ethical attitudes towards abortion associated with modernization also took place.
In a society where low-fertility values are evolving, increasing numbers of women will find them-
selves involuntarily pregnant. If, previously, abortion was considered morally and legally wrong,
previously accepted norms will clash with the needs of this growing number of women. Such a
society then faces a dilemma which can ultimately be resolved in only two ways: either (l) its
ethical code and law can change so that abortion becomes permissible, or (2) women must be
persuaded to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.
Since the very structure of a modernizing society encourages many women to end their
pregnancies, and since it is very difficult to stop illegal abortions in a society with low-fertility
values, it is likely that, if social conditions continue to reinforce low-fertility values over a long
period of time, the dilemma will be resolved by modifying the traditional ethical code and
legalizing abortion.
The history of American abortion attitudes shows a pattern somewhat similar to that just
described. Strong anti-abortion norms were present when low-fertility values and a greater
demand for abortion developed during America's early period of modernization in the nineteenth
century. Existing norms were not persuasive enough to prevent increasing numbers oCwomen
from having abortions surreptitiously, but they prevented open challenge of their legitimacy.
Early in this century, however, the tension between women's perceived need for abortion
and the prevailing anti-abortion norms increased as low fertility values became more entrenched
66 R. SAUER

in American thought and abortions more widespread, and by the 1930s there developed a small
but significant challenge to the traditional morality on abortion. In the immediately succeeding
decades more and more Americans openly justified abortion until by the early 1960s probably
a majority of Americans approved of abortion when a pregnancy imposed an extreme hardship
on a woman, as in, cases involving rape, likely foetal deformity or poor health. Anti-abortion
norms, however, were still strong enough so that most Americans remained opposed to abortion
on request. 93
In the 1960s the tension between abortion needs and traditional abortion norms reached a
breaking point. While large numbers of women formerly underwent illegal abortion silently,
the hazards and humiliation associated with these became increasingly unacceptable to many
women. Coercive anti-abortion norms in a society in which low-fertility values and the use of
abortion had been long established became intolerable, and a normative adjustment was made;
by the early 1970s abortion on demand was regarded as justified, so that numerous women could
openly flaunt the traditional Christian morality without a sense of guilt or shame, and more
Americans approved early abortion on request than did not. This new abortion ethic was quickly
reflected in changes in the law.
Aside from the gradual evolution of more permissive abortion norms arising from the develop-
ment of low-fertility values, there have been various other factors present in recent years which
encouraged the development of more permissive attitudes toward abortion. For one thing, modern
medicine has made hospital abortion a safer procedure than childbirth, thereby eliminating one
previous reason for suppressing abortion. Secondly, instead of fearing 'race suicide', many
Americans to-day fear too great a growth of population, and consequently, abortion might be
more welcome to-day than previously as one major means of reducing growth.
Recent changes in sexual attitudes may also expedite the development of more permissive
attitudes to abortion. The more open discussion of all sexual matters includes a more open-exam-
ination and discussion of abortion, which is a prerequisite if any change in ethics or law is to take
place. Until people are no longer inhibited from openly discussing abortion, there is no pressure
to change the law and the law will remain unchanged, no matter how great private opposition
may be. The burden of a restrictive law in society with low-fertility values would in itself encourage
public discussion of abortion, but if the social climate were to inhibit public discussion of any
sexual topic, it might be very difficult to criticize restrictive laws openly even if a large segment
of the populations were to regard that law as dysfunctional.
One further way in which changing sexual attitudes may lead to a more tolerant attitude
towards abortion might be mentioned. With to-day's relatively permissive sexual standards,
non-marital sex is viewed as less 'sinful' than previously, and fewer people feel that an unmarried
pregnant woman should be made to 'pay' for her actions by bearing a child. The punitive function
of anti-abortion norms is therefore diminished, and consequently so is the perceived justification
of the norms themselves.
Important to the ethical and legal justification of abortion is a low valuation of early foetal
life, and the view that early foetal life is not human but only 'potentially human' has become
increasingly accepted in recent years. The opposite trend existed when restrictive laws were being
passed during the nineteenth century. Foetal life became more valued; doctors and others asserted
that human life and human rights began at conception. '
This changing view of the status of the foetus seems to be associated at least partly with
changing fertility values; when a need for high fertility is felt, foetal life is likely to be highly

93 Although as late as 1965 only 8 per cent of women supported abortion on J:equest, the rapid change of attitudes
since then suggests that the 1965 attitude was not a strongly ingrained one. Many apparently were following the
conventional norm without giving much thought to the subject or were regarding the existing law as representing
an ideal which, unfortunately, frequently could not be abided by in individual cases, often one's own. It is likely that
some women who had undergone an illegal operation nevertheless supported highly restrictive laws when surveyed.
 ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN AMERICA, 1800-1973 67
valued, and conversely. Over the past century American society has developed low-fertility values,
and the considerable demand for abortion consequent on these values may have led to an erosion
of the once high value of foetal life, which then makes it possible to justify the operation ethically
and legally.
Of course, a large proportion of Americans still value early foetal life highly and hold strong
anti-abortion attitudes, but their number is declining, and given the retention of low-fertility
values, which seems assured by such things as the fear of a 'population explosion' and the
increasing frequency of a 'success ethic', among females which is often inimical to high fertility,
it is likely that those holding strong anti-abortion attitudes will continue to diminish in future
years.