HISTORY OF ABORTION

The Hope Clinic reports:

Abortion has been in existence since the ancient times and practiced by women all over the world. From primitive potions to barbaric tools and odd instruments, women resorted to painful, humiliating procedures in order to induce a miscarriage.

2600 BC
First recorded recipe for an abortion-producing drug.

1850 BC
Egyptians record recipe for contraceptive pessaries, one made from crocodile dung.

4th Century AD
St. Augustine lays down Catholic dogma sanctioning abortion up to 80 days for female fetus and up to 40 days for male fetus.

13th Century AD
St. Thomas Aquinas states Catholic dogma justifying sexual intercourse only for procreation.

1564 AD
Italian anatomist, Fallopius, discoverer of Fallopian tubes, publicizes condoms as anti-venereal disease devices.

1588
Pope Sixtus forbids all abortions.

1591
Pope Gregory XIV rescinds Pope Sixtus’ edict against abortion.

1803
Great Britain makes abortion a misdemeanor.

1821
Connecticut outlaws abortion after quickening, early abortions are legal.

1860’s
All states pass comprehensive, criminal abortion laws. Most remain until 1973.

1869
Pope Pius IX forbids all abortions in exchange for France’s Napoleon III acknowledging papal infallibility. France’s population experienced a sharp decrease over the previous 60 years.

1873
Federal Comstock laws enacted prohibiting mailing or distribution of information on birth control and abortion.

1879
Margaret Higgins Sanger is born. She led the movement for birth control in the U.S.

1882
First “modern” birth control clinic in the world opens in Holland, sponsored by trade unions.

1913
Margaret Sanger arrested for violation of Comstock laws because of feminist birth control columns in, The Woman Rebel.

1916
Margaret Sanger & her sister, Ethel Byrne jailed for dispensing contraceptive information at first American birth control clinic in Brooklyn, NY.

1924
First scientific confirmation of women’s ovulatory and fertility cycle.

1930
Pope Pius XI affirms Catholic dogma that every act of sexual intercourse is a sin unless performed with a reproductive intent. [OOPS!]

1942
Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Federation of America becomes Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

1956
Dr. John Rock (a Catholic) and others developed the birth control pill. Their research was funded by two women.

1960’s
FBI crime reports showed organized crime rings made enormous profits performing dangerous abortions. Any doctors caught performing a safe abortion were sent to prison, fined, and had their medical license taken away.

1963
Pope Paul IV issues encyclical Humanae Vitae condemning artificial birth control.

1965
In Griswold v. Connecticut, U.S. Supreme Court rules Connecticut’s law prohibiting birth control for married couples violates a newly defined right of marital privacy.

1967
Then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California signs the most liberal abortion law of the times allowing freedom of choice during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. [GO REAGAN!]

1970
Hawaii, Alaska, and New York repeal criminal abortion laws allowing abortion in the first trimester.

1970
Belotti v, Baird II decision allows states to require parental consent for abortion so long as there is a confidential judicial bypass.

1972
Supreme Court finds the right to privacy of unmarried persons violated by Massachusetts law against distribution of contraceptives in Eisenstadt v Baird. Justice Brennan in the majority opinion states that all Americans have a right to bear and beget children free from government interference.

1973
On January 22, 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision, hands down Roe v Wade making a 1st trimester abortion a private decision between a woman & her physician. In the 2nd trimester states can put limitations on abortion with regard to the health of the pregnant woman. In the 3rd trimester states can make abortion illegal except to save the life of the woman.

1973
Indiana passes first call for a Constitutional Convention to ban abortion.

1976
Hyde Amendment is passed barring the use of federal Medicaid funds to provide abortions to poor women.

1977
A revised Hyde Amendment is passed which allows states to deny Medicaid funding except in cases of rape, incest, or severe and long lasting damage to the woman’s physical health. Rosise Jimenez, a 27- year-old mother on welfare, died of an illegal abortion as she could not afford to get a legal abortion due to the Hyde Amendment.

1977
First reported arson at an abortion clinic (in St. Paul, MN) and first know bombing of an abortion clinic (in Cincinnati, OH).

1980
19 of the 34 states required have passed calls for a Constitutional Convention.

1989
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services is handed down by Supreme Court allowing states to place increased restrictions on access.

1991
Supreme Court upholds Title X gag rule (restriction on mentioning abortion in federally funded clinics) in Rust v. Sullivan. Congress votes overwhelmingly to overturn gag rule, but override of Pres. Bush’s veto fails narrowly.

1993
Newly inaugurated President Clinton reverses several anti-choice policies of Reagan & Bush administrations including gag rule.

1993
Dr.David Gunn is murdered by anti-choice fanatic in Florida. He is the first of a series of abortion providers shot in the following years.

1994
President Clinton signs Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) making it a federal crime to interfere with the provision of reproductive health care.

1994
Dr. John Britton, Lt. Col. Jim Barrett, Shannon Lowney, and Leanne Nichols are murdered in shootings at three abortion clinics.

1995
U.S. clinical trials of mifepristone (RU486).

1998
25 years of legal abortion in America.

2000
FDA approves Mifeprex (RU486).


The early dates have not been independently verified, but are interesting. The U.S. dates are materially correct.