HISTORY
ABORTION
Abortion is banned across the US except to preserve the Mother’s life (1880 AD)
Connecticut was the first state to formally and explicitly ban elective abortion in 1821. ( 1 ) Prior to that point elective abortion was still typically treated as illegal under British Common Law – at least after the quickening – but the law codes were often inconsistent, informal, and didn’t clarify exceptional or unusual cases. But the 19th century was a time of great scientific achievement, industrial innovation, and even medical progress. By 1880, every state in the U.S. had explicitly and legally banned elective abortion. This development stems largely from the letter writing campaign of Horatio Robinson Storer ( 2 ) and the shared support of the American Medical Association. ( 3 ) In that era, abolishing abortion was seen as progressive, since it meant prioritizing women’s health, reducing sex-trafficking, and restricting men’s ability to pressure women into unwanted high-risk abortions. While abortion has always carried a measure of risk, in the 19th century it was far more dangerous for women than it is today since germ theory was not widely accepted, antibiotics and penicillin weren’t invented yet, and doctors routinely roamed between patients without first washing their hands.
Abortionist Ann Lohman (a.k.a. Madame Restell) as imagined in National Police Gazette (13 March 1847), scanned from The Wickedest Woman in New York: Madame Restell, the Abortionist by Clifford Browder (Hamden, CN: Archon Books, 1988), Public Domain, Accessed 29 April 2024 at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Police_Gazette_Restell.jpg
National American Women’s Suffrage Association Formed (1890 AD)
In the wake of the Seneca Falls Convention (1848) with early feminist influence, a few groups had formed around the issue of women’s suffrage. Most notable are The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), both beginning in 1869. These early groups, however, divided their limited resources by disagreeing over whether to be “single issue,” and whether to allow men into their ranks. On the Congressional front, early efforts at a suffrage amendment fell flat, getting tabled in 1868 and voted down in 1887. On February 18, 1890, these rival organizations finally put aside their differences, merging into one group they formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWS).( 4 ) From day one, the organization had a sizable membership (7,000) and revered leadership under Susan B. Anthony – at 70 years old, a veteran and living legend in the fight for women’s rights. ( 5 )
“Balcony of the National Suffrage Headquarters in Washington,” with Helen H. Gardner, Carrie Chapman Catt, Maud Wood Park (Washington DC, 1917-1919) in Ida Husted Harper, The History of Woman Suffrage (6vols.), vol. 5 (New York: JJ Little & Ives, 1922), pg. 671, Public Domain. Access 31 May 2024 at: Obstetric model of a womb (clothe & leather) designed and created by Angelique du Coudray. (1759); at in the Flaubert Museum & History of Medicine in Rouen, France. Public Domain. Image accessed 16 March 2024 at: https://www.neatorama.com/ 2018/12/10/The-Cloth-Womb-from-18th-Century-France/
The Woman Suffrage Procession Marches on DC (3 March 1913 AD)
“Offical Program Woman Suffrage Procession,” by Benjamin Moran Dale (3 March 1913) restored by Adam Cuerden, Public Domain and Creative Commons. Accessed 31 May 2024 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_Program_Woman_Suffrage_Procession_-_March_3,_1913.jpg
The biggest platform issue in first wave feminism was suffrage (women’s voting), with the temperance movement (prohibition) as second priority. Several female-led and politically charged organizations had emerged in late 19th and early 20th century. Among them was the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (1913). Led by the pacifist Quaker and degreed scholar Alice Paul and the more radical activist Lucy Burns, the Congressional Union soon organized the Woman Suffrage Procession ( 7 ), a march/parade on Washington that took place on March 3, 1913. By some accounts this was the first large-scale political march on Washington, with 5,000-10,000 participants. ( 6 )
Early Feminists Help Enact Prohibition in the 18th Amendment (1919 AD)
Early feminists are known today primarily for women’s suffrage, achieving voting rights for women. But in the early 20th century, feminists were also overwhelmingly united on Prohibition (of alcohol). This focal point is, in many ways, a logical response to the Industrial Revolution.
Some of the ugly side effects of arduous factory life included long-hours at work, leaving married women at home alone essentially single-parenting their children. Meanwhile, alcohol sales and alcoholism soared, as men turned to the bottle to cope with factory life. Alcoholism brought domestic abuse. For these reasons, first-wave feminists widely endorsed a general ban on alcohol sales, hoping to protect women and families. So, when prohibition was achieved via the 18th amendment, ( 8 ) ( 9 ) and enforced by the Volstead Act (1919), ( 10 ) feminists and social conservatives celebrated it as a victory for the family. Unfortunately, the 18th Amendment did little to lighten the load of exhausted factory workers. Prohibiting their liquid coping mechanism was not well received overall, although alcohol consumption did drop. The 18th Amendment was repealed 14 years later in December 1933, ( 11 ) but not before drastically reducing the rates of alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related crimes including domestic abuse.
"Woman's Holy War. Grand Charge on the Enemy's Works." an allegorical 1874 political cartoon print Currier and Ives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Women Are Granted the Right to Vote in the 19th Amendment (1920 AD)
Perhaps the biggest win for “1st Wave” feminism is the 19th Amendment. ( 12 ) Hundreds of feminist clubs, after decades of campaigning, publishing, and marching, finally saw their united efforts towards “women’s suffrage” pay off. The text of the amendment reads,
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
(19th Amendment to the US. Constitution)
Early feminists also united overwhelmingly on prohibition (of alcohol). With their support, the 18th amendment was passed in 1918, issuing a general ban on alcohol. But it was the 19th Amendment – on Suffrage – that is the most celebrated achievement of 1st Wave feminism.
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Archives Identifier 596314, National Archives and Records Administration, accessed January 19, 2026, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/596314
The US Supreme Court Upholds Compulsory Sterilization in Buck v. Bell (1927 AD)
The State of Virginia passed a Eugenics law in 1924 allowing for state-enforced sterilization of “feeble-minded” people. Under this law, the 18-year-old Carrie Buck – a patient of Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded – faced the threat of forced-sterilization. She protested. Her case eventually came before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) where she lost in what became the most famous eugenics case in SCOTUS history. Justice Holmes penned the decision saying, “being swamped with incompetence . . . three generations of imbeciles are enough.” ( 13 ) Historians and commentators, later claimed that Carrie Buck wasn’t mentally-handicapped at all. Rather, she was targeted for sterilization because she was materially and socially poor, unmarried, and poorly educated, when she was impregnated by sexual assault. ( 14 ) The eugenics argument, applied to her, was not clearly motivated by altruism or humanitarianism. She was simply an easy target for fear of being a “drain” on society and the healthcare system specifically.
![Carrie and Emma Buck at the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, taken by A.H. Estabrook before the Buck v. Bell trial in Virginia,” [photograph] by Arthur Estabrook November 1924.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/cbf429_4a608de10862435394cc1b1bb658931f~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_307,h_381,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/cbf429_4a608de10862435394cc1b1bb658931f~mv2.png)
Carrie and Emma Buck at the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, taken by A.H. Estabrook before the Buck v. Bell trial in Virginia,” [photograph] by Arthur Estabrook November 1924. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carrie_and_Emma_Buck,_1924.jpg
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is Passed, Protecting Against Abusive Child Labor (1938 AD)
By the mid-30’s the Industrial revolution was well underway and WWI was in the rear-view mirror. The Department of Labor (est. 1917) had been around for about 20 years. A growing concern about worker’s rights had developed in the industrial era. One might have expected a comprehensive workers rights bill earlier, but a growing credit-crisis exploded into the stock-market crash of 1929, and ushered in the Great Depression. The economy would eventually recover, primarily due to the manufacturing needs of WWII and - arguably - FDR’s infrastructure programs and policies. As the country clawed its way out of the depression, the time had arrived to update and formalize worker’s rights. In 1938, FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. Premised on a “fair wage for a fair day’s labor,” it established a 25-cent per hour minimum wage, a 40-hour standard work week, and a minimum age of 16 for most jobs, and 18 for more dangerous job (manufacturing and mining, etc.). ( 15 ) ( 16 ) Additionally, the FLSA stipulated a range of projections for child labor, to guard against exploitation and mistreatment. Child labor protections restricted how many hours children under 16 could work on school nights and on weekends. Children’s rights have historically been an afterthought compared to the rights and entitlements of adults, so the FLSA was a major advance for children’s rights in the modern era.
https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/june/fair-labor-standards-act-signedttps://tile.loc.gov/storage- services/service/pnp/hec/23700/23723v.jpg#h=1024&w=817
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Vincenzo_Laviosa_-_Franklin_D._Roosevelt_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Gwendolyn Brooks Writes the Poem “The Mother,” about Abortion-Grief (1945 AD)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), the first African-American to win a Pulitzer prize for poetry, wrote a poem in 1945 grieving the price of aborting. While many claim the poem is anti-abortion, the poet strictly asked that her poem neither be used in support for or against abortion, but that it just be allowed to resonate with readers and allow them to draw their own conclusions. It is hard to read Brooks’ poem, however, without feeling her deep grief over the children she aborted and her recognition of their humanity.
“The Mother” ( 17 )
Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?—
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
The United Nations Proposes a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948 AD)
On October 24, 1945, with the Holocaust and a host of crimes against humanity lingering in recent memory, twenty-nine member countries chartered the United Nations, intending to police any future world conflicts and to promote humanitarian reconstruction efforts after the war. By 1948, the membership had grown to include at least 45 member countries, and the UN outlined a list of basic human rights intended for universal application known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ( 18 )
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn’t mention abortion directly, nor any humanitarian rights for children-in-utero. But neither does it suggest any “right” to elective abortion. Strictly speaking, any rightful abortion-choice policy must satisfy three criteria: (1) a lack of protective rights for children-in-utero (i.e., no “right to life”), (2) a rightful license to kill the child-in-utero, and (3) a practical means of implementation that would not incur overall worse outcomes. The UN Declaration of Human Rights is silent on all three. Later, after the Roe decision (1973) the UN would adopt a pro-choice stance, tacitly denying any “right to life” for children-in-utero (see, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [1979]). ( 19 ) But, at no point has the UN demonstrated that #1, 2, or 3 are true, or even close enough to being “true” to be sufficient grounds for social policy. It remains to be proven, at any international or national level, that there exists - as a human right - a “license to kill” innocent human beings in-utero for non-medical reasons (i.e., elective abortion).
While this document officially has no power over any nation, it has become a prominent reference point for weighing the high cost of human dignity and the shared responsibility for protecting it from any future crimes against humanity like the Holocaust. It is now one of the most important founding statements on human rights ideals in the modern era.
The FDA approves Oral Contraception for Public release (1960 AD)
At the start of the 1960's, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) played a major role in the sexual revolution by approving Enovid®, the first oral contraception ( 23 ) approved for public use. ( 20 ) It was introduced to American markets in May of 1960 and marketed as the “birth control pill,” or simply “the pill.” ( 21 ) This medical technology was sponsored in part by Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Early forms of the pill used 100-175 micrograms of estrogen and 10 milligrams of progestin in 21-day cycles, plus 7 days off. Later it was discovered that estrogen is a dangerous carcinogen in high doses, especially in combination with progestin. When both are used in high doses, there’s a significant risk of heart attack, blood clots, stroke, and even dementia. ( 22 ) Today, oral contraceptives have around 1/10th the dosage strength with 10-30 micrograms of estrogen, and 0.3-1 micrograms of progestin.
When The Pill hit the public market, it was mostly reserved for married couples, as several states citing Comstock Laws, placed heavy restrictions on its use. Not until the Supreme Court case, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), was that application of the Comstock Laws overturned, and married and unmarried people alike were granted equal access to birth-control pills. ( 24 )
While many credit the Kinsey Reports as the start of the sexual revolution, it’s hard to deny that they were dwarfed in comparison to the cultural tsunami that is oral contraception. The Pill fostered a populist upsurge in libertine sexual practice, redefining gender norms, relationships, marriage and family. That sexual revolution never “resolved” per se, as it continues to reshape the social landscape today. The Pill likely has done more to reshape that landscape than anything prior.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/progesterone-oral-route/side-effects/drg-20075298?p=1#:~:text=Using%20large%20doses%20of%20this,is%20higher%20if%20you%20smoke. Top left: https://time.com/3929971/enovid-the-pill/Bottom left: https://www.si.edu/object/enovid-e-21-oral-contraceptive%3Anmah_1379573
Page Citations & Notes
1. Mohr, James C. Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–1900. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Referenced for: the page’s summary that Connecticut explicitly banned abortion in 1821 and that by 1880 every state had statutory abortion restrictions in place.
2. Storer, Horatio R. “Why Not? A Book for Every Woman.” Boston, 1866. Referenced for: the anti-abortion reform campaign associated with Horatio Storer and the physician-led push to change nineteenth-century abortion law.
3. American Medical Association. Transactions of the American Medical Association. Referenced for: the page’s claim that the American Medical Association supported the nineteenth-century physician campaign against abortion.
4. Harper, Ida Husted, ed. History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 4. Rochester, NY, 1902. Referenced for: the merger of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association into the National American Woman Suffrage Association on February 18, 1890.
5. National Park Service. “National American Woman Suffrage Association.” Referenced for: NAWSA’s formation, leadership, and organizational significance in the suffrage movement.
6. Library of Congress. “Woman Suffrage Procession, Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913.” Referenced for: the 1913 suffrage procession in Washington and its scale and political significance.
7. National Woman’s Party. “The 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession.” Referenced for: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and the Congressional Union’s role in organizing the procession.
8. United States. Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1919. Quoted/reference point: national prohibition of “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.”
9. National Constitution Center. “The 18th Amendment.” Constitution Center. Referenced for: the amendment’s adoption, enforcement framework, and later repeal.
10. United States. National Prohibition Act (Volstead Act), 1919. Referenced for: statutory enforcement of the 18th Amendment.
11. United States. Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1933. Quoted/reference point: repeal of national prohibition in December 1933.
12. United States. Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1920. National Archives catalog copy. Quoted/reference point: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States on account of sex.”
13. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). Quoted/reference point: Holmes’s line, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Referenced for: the Court’s approval of compulsory sterilization under Virginia’s 1924 eugenics law.
14. Lombardo, Paul A. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Referenced for: later historical reassessment of Carrie Buck and the social-class and sexual-assault context surrounding her sterilization.
15. United States. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. U.S. Department of Labor. Quoted/reference point: the act established the federal minimum wage, overtime rules, and child labor protections.
16. Library of Congress. “Fair Labor Standards Act Signed.” Library of Congress guide. Referenced for: the 1938 enactment, wage floor, workweek standard, and restrictions on child labor.
17. Brooks, Gwendolyn. “The Mother.” In A Street in Bronzeville. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945. Poetry Foundation author page. Quoted/reference point: the page reproduces the poem beginning “Abortions will not let you forget” and including “You were born, you had body, you died.”
18. United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. December 10, 1948. OHCHR text. Referenced for: the page’s discussion of the postwar human-rights framework and its emphasis on human dignity after the Holocaust.
19. United Nations. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. December 18, 1979. OHCHR text. Referenced for: the page’s later contrast between the UDHR and subsequent UN-era women’s-rights frameworks.
20. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “The Pill.” Referenced for: FDA approval of the first oral contraceptive for contraceptive use in 1960.
21. TIME. “Enovid: The First Birth Control Pill.” TIME. Referenced for: Enovid’s May 1960 introduction and its public launch as the first widely marketed birth-control pill.
22. Mayo Clinic. “Progesterone (Oral Route) Side Effects.” Mayo Clinic. Referenced for: the page’s side-effect discussion concerning higher-dose hormone exposure and risks such as clots and stroke.
23. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “Enovid E oral contraceptive.” Smithsonian. Referenced for: the product artifact shown on the page and the identification of Enovid as an early oral contraceptive.
24. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). Oyez. Referenced for: the page’s claim that Griswold removed state-level Comstock-style restrictions on contraceptive access for married couples.
Narration and or text on this page has been developed with the assistance of the ChatGPT LLM.