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Nelson, Jennifer. Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement: And the Reproductive Rights Movement. New York: NYU Press, 2003.

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History of Abortions in the Colonial Era

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History of Abortions in the Colonial Era

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https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2013/08/08/71893/scarlet-letters-getting-the-history-of-abortion-and-contraception-right/
Abortions were safe and condoned until 1821 when abortion laws began to appear in books, and in the 1860s where anti-abortion laws began to be enforced.

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If recent legislation passed in Arkansas and North Dakota is allowed to stand, it will be harder for women to get an abortion in those states than it was in New England in 1650. Legislators in Little Rock and Bismarck have passed new restrictions that ban abortions according to when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Federal judges have blocked the new restrictions until legal challenges to their constitutionality are settled. But the six-week deadline contrasts starkly with early American abortion law, where the procedure was legal until " quickening "-the first time a mother feels the baby kick, which can happen anywhere from 14 weeks to 26 weeks into pregnancy.

Abortion was not just legal-it was a safe, condoned, and practiced procedure in colonial America and common enough to appear in the legal and medical records of the period. Official abortion laws did not appear on the books in the United States until 1821, and abortion before quickening did not become illegal until the 1860s. If a woman living in New England in the 17th or 18th centuries wanted an abortion, no legal, social, or religious force would have stopped her.

That, however, is not the way the anti-abortion movement likes to paint the history of abortion in the United States. Anti-abortion organizations such as the National Right to Life spin a narrative in which legal abortion is a historical anomaly and an unnatural consequence of modern America's loose moral standards. On the National Right to Life's website, for example, a page titled " Abortion History Timeline" describes "a few rogue doctors and midwives" performing abortions in early America, only "as far back as the 1850s." In reality, trusted midwives and medical practitioners performed abortions from the beginning of American colonial life and throughout world history. Fox News also falsifies American abortion history on its website. On a page titled " Fast Facts: History of U.S. Abortion Laws," it claims that abortion in the American colonies "was ruled a misdemeanor if performed prior to quickening."

Other anti-abortion groups such as the Family Research Council claim that abortion could not have had "foundation in the text of the Constitution"-overlooking the fact that when the Constitution was written, abortion was legal until quickening. Americans United for Life makes the same mistake on its website, misconstruing a quote from Thomas Jefferson-"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government"-as being anti-abortion. Americans United for Life also describes itself on its website as working to "restore a culture of life." Of course, when the founding fathers met in a sweltering hall in Pennsylvania to declare independence, such a culture was not even a twinkle in their eyes.

Puritans, sex, and legal abortion

To many people, the facts about abortion's legality in early America can be surprising. This is partly thanks to the American imagination, which paints the Puritans-the first English settlers on American soil to focus on creating communities and families-as strict, foreboding people, incapable of joy or laughter, let alone sexual pleasure. This popular perception is drawn partly from books such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which portrays Puritan society as deeply religious, dark, and unforgiving. It is hard for modern Americans to believe that a society as pious and austere as the Puritans' New England-the cultural and legal parent of much of early American communal life-tolerated a controversial procedure such as abortion.

In reality, the Puritans were much more lighthearted than is commonly thought, and in some ways, they were quite progressive when it came to sexual conduct. Puritans believed that marital sex for pleasure was important and that marriage was a contract of love, not just economics. Although premarital and extramarital sexual relationships were illegal, they were so common that enforcement was never very strict. The legal documents of the time are rampant with recorded "sexual offenses," and the percentage of firstborn children born early or completely out of wedlock hovered at around 40 percent during the colonial era. Since the Puritans believed that one could be godly without children and that life began when a mother felt her baby kick, their strict religious code had no need to outlaw abortion before quickening.

The Puritans brought their laws on abortion from merry old England, where the procedure was also legal until quickening. Although the Puritans changed much of England's legal system when they established their "city upon a hill," they kept abortion as a part of Puritan family life, allowing women to choose when and if they would become mothers-whether for the first time or the fifth time.

Colonial women procured prequickening abortions mainly with the help of other women in their communities; skilled midwives knew which herbs could cause a woman to abort, and early American medical books even gave instructions for "suppressing the courses," or inducing an abortion. Much of what we know about abortion in 18th-century America comes from the case of Sarah Grosvenor, a young woman who died from a late-term surgical abortion in Connecticut in 1742. Surgical abortions were rare and dangerous; most abortions in this period were induced by herbal abortifacients. Sarah's case entered the legal record after the doctor who performed her abortion was brought to court for murdering the young woman and her unborn child-the abortion was illegal since it took place after quickening. Cornelia Hughes Dayton, however, an early American historian who has researched the case extensively, points out that when Sarah first tried to abort her child by "taking the trade"-ingesting herbal abortifacients-the women of her community were not surprised by her actions. They were familiar with abortion and were not troubled by its ethical implications.

The campaign to criminalize abortion

Acceptance of early-term abortion changed during the 19th century as Victorian sensibilities took hold. By 1910 abortion-except in cases to save the mother's life-was a criminal procedure in every state except Kentucky, where the courts declared the procedure to be judicially illegal. The new restrictions on abortion were caused by many factors, including changing social, class, and family dynamics in the early 19th century. Americans in the Victorian era thought abortion was a problem brought on by upper-class white women, who were choosing to start their families later and limit their size. Increased female independence was also perceived as a threat to male power and patriarchy, especially as Victorian women increasingly volunteered outside the home for religious and charitable causes.

During the mid-19th century, American physicians also began to battle "irregular" doctors, such as homeopaths and midwives, in an attempt to assert the authority and legitimacy of male-dominated scientific medicine. To tackle these irregular doctors, the "scientific" physicians attacked legal abortion because it was midwives and other "unscientific" medical practitioners who safely performed the procedure. White men were also concerned by shifting ethnic and racial dynamics in the United States, worrying that the low birthrate of the white upper class would lead to racial inferiors and un-American immigrants overrunning the country.

Together, a coalition of male doctors backed by the American Medical Association, the Catholic Church, and sensationalist newspapers began to campaign for the criminalization of abortion. By the turn of the century, this coalition had largely succeeded in limiting women's medical choices. According to Carroll Smith-Rosenberg in her book Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America, restricting abortion was one way that male physicians could "assert clear authority" over their female patients. The Victorian anti-abortion movement portrayed women who terminated their pregnancies as unnatural and selfish, undermining the expected, patriotic, and godly role of the American woman-that of wife and mother.

After abortion was made a criminal offense at the close of the Victorian era, it would not become legal again until 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court ruling declared that all women had the right to terminate a pregnancy until the fetus was viable outside the womb. The decision came after years of legal, political, and religious advocacy on behalf of women and their reproductive health and rights. In the roughly 100 years when abortion was illegal in the United States, women suffered and died from botched abortions, with as many as 5,000 women dying every year in the decades leading up to the ruling. After Roe v. Wade, deaths and hospitalizations resulting from unsafe abortions effectively ended in this country. When abortion was legal in early America, it was considered at least as safe as delivering a child at term, and today abortion is considered an extremely safe procedure. But when a woman's right to an abortion is restricted, the operation turns risky: Today approximately 68,000 women around the world die each year from unsafe abortions.

The case for contraception

The notion that contraception, like abortion, is a relatively new phenomenon is also wildly distorted. Since ancient times women and men have been using a variety of contraceptive methods beyond abstinence, and the pill is the only type of birth control that was not available until recent decades. Contraceptive methods historically include everything from "pulling out" to diaphragms and condoms. Distribution of and public education about birth control was legal in the United States until 1873, when the infamous Comstock Act was passed.

The act, which declared that information about birth control was "obscene," grew out of sentiments similar to those that spurred the anti-abortion movement. It also led 24 states to pass similar restrictions; collectively, the federal and state restrictions were known as Comstock laws. Margaret Sanger, the well-known crusader for birth control and founder of what is now called Planned Parenthood, was arrested for violating Comstock laws while attempting to educate desperate women about how they could better control their own bodies and their families by using contraception.

It was not until 1965 that the last Comstock laws left standing in the United States were ruled unconstitutional. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that married women in every state had the right to access birth control. But unmarried women had to wait until the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird to gain the same right.

Painting the past, protecting the future

Abortion and contraception are not new. They are not a product of modernity or rising secularism or a reflection of the downfall of the traditional family. Throughout history, women and their partners have chosen to limit their families for the sake of their health, happiness, and economic viability. Men and women frequently made these choices without the guilty association of sin; whether abortion and contraception were legal often had nothing to do with a society's piety. Instead, the legal status of abortion was tied to a society's outlook regarding sex and gender, with religion giving a moral high ground to either side of the argument.

Many people imagine our history in a way that is more fantasy than reality, assigning values and morals that they wish contemporary society possessed to our nation's founders. But imagining quaint and pious scenes does not make them true. The Scarlet Letter 's bleak and unforgiving portrayal of Puritan sexuality is more a reflection of the Victorian sexual standards of Nathaniel Hawthorne's era than the sexual values of his ancestors' days. In reality, female sexuality in the Puritan and colonial period was in many ways more liberated than in Hawthorne's days; it was only years later that chastity became the prized virtue of the American woman.
Ranana Dine is an intern with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.
Today, when anti-abortion groups proclaim their version of history and discuss the founders or rogue doctors, they are imposing their own moral vision on an unhistorical past. The anti-abortion movement's imagined reality-in which colonial Americans believed that life began at conception, championed the rights of the "unborn," and prevented female sexual freedom-is just plain wrong, regardless of the true ethical questions surrounding abortion. Sexual values surrounding abortion and birth control have changed with time and cultures, a historical truth that everyone on the political spectrum must recognize. If an honest discussion about abortion and birth control is to take place, we must appreciate their progressive place in our history and make sure we are not moving backwards in time.

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Scarlet Letters: Getting the History of Abortion and Contraception Right - Center for American Progress

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If recent legislation passed in Arkansas and North Dakota is allowed to stand, it will be harder for women to get an abortion in those states than it was in New England in 1650. Legislators in Little Rock and Bismarck have passed new restrictions that ban abortions according to when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

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https://time.com/5735432/reproductive-justice-groups/
June 1994-A group of women gathered at a conference in Chicago to hear about the Clinton Administration’s proposal for health care reform. This conference devalued reproductive health which struck concern among these women.

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'We Are Grabbing Our Own Microphones': How Advocates of Reproductive Justice Stepped Into the Spotlight

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Reproductive justice, unlike the more mainstream phrasing 'reproductive rights,' goes beyond the idea of being 'pro-choice.'

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Davis, Dána-Ain. Reproductive Injustice : Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth  New York: New York University Press, 2019.

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https://muse.jhu.edu/article/594006/summary
The rhetoric of "choice" is a racist and classist privilege of those who are literally and figuratively able to afford it.

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[Skip to Content]

For too long, the rhetoric of "choice" has privileged predominantly white middle-class women who have the ability to choose from reproductive options that are unavailable to poor and low-income women, especially women of color. The mainstream movement for reproductive rights has narrowed its concerns to advocate almost exclusively for the legal right to abortion, further distancing its agenda from the interests of women who have been targets of sterilization abuse because of the devaluation of their right to bear children.

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Project MUSE - Reproductive Justice, Not Just Rights

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Skip to Content] For too long, the rhetoric of "choice" has privileged predominantly white middle-class women who have the ability to choose from reproductive options that are unavailable to poor and low-income women, especially women of color.

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https://www.change.org/t/reproductive-rights-en-us

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Topic · Reproductive rights · Change.org

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We need to resolve the animosity between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice people on the topics of abortion, fetal personhood, and reproductive freedom. The tension is tearing our nation apart. The solution to this discord is education outreach. We need to spread awareness of the three pivotal questions that comprehensively evaluate the morality of abortion rights.

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https://uhawaii-manoa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_springer_books_10_1007_978_3_319_65789_9_9&context=PC&vid=01UHAWAII_MANOA:MANOA&lang=en&search_scope=DN_and_CI&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,Ross,%20Loretta%20J.%20%E2%80%9CTeaching%20Reproductive%20Justice:%20An%20Activist%E2%80%99s%20Approach.%E2%80%9D%20In%20Black%20Women%E2%80%99s%20Liberatory%20Pedagogies,%20159%E2%80%93180.%20Cham:%20Springer%20International%20Publishing,%202017.&offset=0
Need to request for a copy from UH Library

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Police Brutality Linking to the Reproductive Justice Movement

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Police Brutality Linking to the Reproductive Justice Movement

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https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hasrapo12&div=14&id=&page=

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About | HeinOnline

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12 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 205 (2015)
How Police Brutality Harms Mothers: Linking Police Violence to the Reproductive Justice Movement

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profiles profiles most

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how police brutality harms mothers:

          linking police violence to the

        reproductive justice movement


                          arneta rogers*


      until the killing of black men

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becomes
      as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a
      white mother's son -we who believe in freedom cannot rest
      until this happens.
                                                      -ella baker

                           introduction

     the recent and highly publicized killing of michael brown

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an
unarmed 18-year-old african american and the subsequent grand
jury decision not to indict darren wilson

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and
highly emotional and politically charged social commentary on the
racialized effects of police brutality.' the deaths of mr. brown and
various other african-american men in this same year-including



    * arneta rogers is a j.d. candidate at the university of california

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2015. i would like to thank the entire hastings race and poverty law
journal editing staff for your contributions and passion in elevating this note

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especially
for the work of deylin thrift-viveros

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and rodney nickens. i extend the utmost gratitude
to the mothers who candidly and generously offered their narratives to supplement this
analysis. a special thank you to professor hadar aviram for supporting this research
focus. this work is dedicated to my mother and sister for their love

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support and
commitment to social justice and to all of the victims of police violence

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may they endure
and rest in power.
    1. michael brown's shooting and its immediate aftermath in ferguson

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About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. %init> 12 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J.

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https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom

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A decision about having a baby or having an abortion is a deeply personal, private decision best left to a woman, her family, and her doctor. Yet some politicians remain obsessed with interfering.

Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed today, and it's incredibly safe. But laws that make it difficult if not impossible for a woman to get an abortion if she needs one, particularly if she is poor, are increasing at an alarming pace. Since 2011, states have enacted more restrictions to abortion than they did in the previous 10 years combined. Extremist politicians continue to work to shut down women's health centers, cut off access to affordable birth control, and shame women who have abortions.

Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, we strive to ensure that every woman has the opportunity to make a real decision and the ability to get the care she needs. With your help, the ACLU stands ready to block efforts to take this decision away from women and their families.

Our work focuses on a range of issues, including protecting access to affordable contraception, protecting a woman's ability to make personal, private decisions about pregnancy and abortion, and fighting pregnancy discrimination.

Legislation

Federal Legislation

Shifts in the power structure of Congress have led to promises to strip away access to reproductive health care, especially abortion. Here's important information on the federal legislation we're watching.

In the States: Legislative Attacks on Abortion

Read the most recent updates on extreme bills that would rob women of the ability to make personal decisions about pregnancy free from political interference.

Cases

In the Courts: ACLU Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Cases

Read more about efforts to use the courts to protect women's access to abortion and other reproductive health services here.

Additional Resources
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers: How Sneaky Laws Are Forcing Quality Health Care Providers to Close Down (Campaign)
Leading medical groups say TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws, which are cloaked in the deceptive language of women's health, actually put women at risk by shutting down health centers where women can get safe and legal abortions.

Here's what you need to know about these dangerous abortion restrictions.
Using Religion to Put Women's Health at Risk (Campaign)
With increasing frequency, women are being denied reproductive health services, including birth control, abortions, and even basic information and refusals, based on a health care institution's religious objections. In too many places, Catholic bishops, not doctors, are making medical decisions for women. The ACLU works hard to defend religious liberty, but religious liberty doesn't include the right to deny someone else health care services they need.

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A decision about having a baby or having an abortion is a deeply personal, private decision best left to a woman, her family, and her doctor. Yet some politicians remain obsessed with interfering.Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed today, and it's incredibly safe.

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https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10297561/
The legality varied from colony to colony, but remained legal in many states. After the 1860s, stronger abortion laws were made but were very ambiguous and difficult to follow.

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Abstract

This piece describes abortion practices in use from the 1600s to the 19th century among the inhabitants of North America. The abortive techniques of women from different ethnic and racial groups as found in historical literature are revealed. Thus, the point is made that abortion is not simply a "now issue" that effects select women. Instead, it is demonstrated that it is a widespread practice as solidly rooted in our past as it is in the present.

PIP: Abortion was frequently practiced in North America during the period from 1600 to 1900. Many tribal societies knew how to induce abortions. They used a variety of methods including the use of black root and cedar root as abortifacient agents. During the colonial period, the legality of abortion varied from colony to colony and reflected the attitude of the European country which controlled the specific colony. In the British colonies abortions were legal if they were performed prior to quickening. In the French colonies abortions were frequently performed despite the fact that they were considered to be illegal. In the Spanish and Portuguese colonies abortion was illegal. From 1776 until the mid-1800s abortion was viewed as socially unacceptable; however, abortions were not illegal in most states. During the 1860s a number of states passed anti-abortion laws. Most of these laws were ambiguous and difficult to enforce. After 1860 stronger anti-abortion laws were passed and these laws were more vigorously enforced. As a result, many women began to utilize illegal underground abortion services. Although abortion was legalized in 1970, many women are still forced to obtain illegal abortion or to perform self-abortions due to the economic constraints imposed by the Hyde Amendment and the unavailability of services in many areas. Throughout the colonial period and during the early years of the republic, the abortion situation for slave women was different than for other women. Slaves were subject to the rules of their owners, and the owners refused to allow their slaves to terminate pregnancies. The owners wanted their slaves to produce as many children as possible since these children belonged to the slave owners. This situation persisted until the end of the slavery era.

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national center for biotechnology information

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This piece describes abortion practices in use from the 1600s to the 19th century among the inhabitants of North America. The abortive techniques of women from different ethnic and racial groups as found in historical literature are revealed. Thus, the point is made that abortion is not simply a "no ...

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Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The Justice Department sued Texas on Thursday over its new abortion restrictions law, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the law.

Garland announced the lawsuit after abortion rights advocates, providers and Democratic lawmakers called for the Biden administration to act. Other legal challenges to the bill have been stymied due to the design of the law, which opponents say was engineered to flout a person's right to an abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973.

"This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party should fear," Garland said.

The Texas statute, which went into effect Sept. 1, is considered one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. It prohibits abortions once a "fetal heartbeat" - a term medical and legal experts say is misleading - can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many people know they're pregnant. Providers say that the law prevents at least 85% of the procedures previously completed in the state.

Previous laws aimed at restricting or stopping abortions have been struck down over the years by the Supreme Court. But this law uses the novel mechanism of relying on private citizens filing lawsuits to enforce the law, not state officials or law enforcement. This makes it especially difficult to strike down in court, because there is not a specific defendant for the court to make an injunction against.

The law empowers any private citizen in the nation to sue someone found to be "aiding and abetting" an abortion, including providers, doctors and even Uber drivers.

The law has seemingly brought most abortions to a halt in the state. Major clinics canceled appointments, fearful of being inundated with lawsuits in which they'd have to pay a penalty of at least $10,000 if they are found to be in violation of the law. Some clinics have even stopped performing abortions allowed under the new restrictions - before fetal heart activity is detected - out of fear of getting hit with lawsuits.

Prior to Thursday's announcement, legal experts expressed doubts as to how a federal lawsuit might work or how successful it might be. Because of the way the law is constructed, experts have been dubious on how the legal saga will play out in courts and those same challenges could impede efforts by the Justice Department. Federal lawmakers have also vowed to overturn the new restrictions by codifying Roe v. Wade in federal law, but those efforts likely face their own political challenges.

The federal lawsuit joins other legal efforts aimed at overturning the restrictions. Abortion providers originally challenged the new law in July, arguing it violates the precedent established by Roe v. Wade. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put a hold on district court proceedings, leading the providers to seek emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. Many onlookers waited late into the night Aug. 31, expecting an order from the high court before the law went into effect - but it didn't come.

A day later, the high court declined to weigh in. In an order, a majority of the court acknowledged that the case raised serious constitutional issues, but said that it wasn't clear whether the government officials and anti-abortion activists named as defendants on the suit "can or will seek to enforce the Texas law," so it wasn't clear whether they could be sued in an attempt to block it. In a 5-4 decision, the Court allowed the law to continue. Court proceedings in the lower courts remain in limbo until the 5th Circuit makes a decision regarding its stay.

The law also prohibits plaintiffs from being ordered to pay defendants' legal fees if the case is dismissed, leaving little risk for people who want to bring lawsuits and potential high costs for clinics to defend themselves even in cases where they ultimately prevail. No lawsuits have been announced so far.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were not immediately available for comment.
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U.S. Justice Department sues Texas over new abortion law that Attorney General Merrick Garland calls unconstitutional

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Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. The Justice Department sued Texas on Thursday over its new abortion restrictions law, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the law.

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History of The Reproductive Justice Movement

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History of The Reproductive Justice Movement

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihwvHHInrlU

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National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda Take

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National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda Take

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https://blackrj.org/our-issues/reproductive-justice/

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In Our Own Voice - National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda

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In Our Own Voice - National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda

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Reproductive Justice (RJ) means the human right to control our sexuality, our gender, our work, and our reproduction. That right can only be achieved when all women and girls have the complete economic, social, and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, our families, and our communities in all areas of

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"Women and girls’ reproductive health is shaped by intersecting systemic oppressions."

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"Women and girls’ reproductive health is shaped by intersecting systemic oppressions."

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https://uhawaii-manoa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01UHAWAII_MANOA/1rbop20/cdi_proquest_journals_2416102766

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Wade was a 1971-1973 landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. The court ruled that a state law that banned abortions (To save the mother) was unconstitutional

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https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18

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https://www.etsy.com/market/mind_your_own_uterus

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Check out our mind your own uterus selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our clothing shops.

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https://read.dukeupress.edu/meridians/article-abstract/19/S1/340/167566/What-Is-Reproductive-Justice-How-Women-of-Color
Connects reproductive rights to other social justice issues such as economic justice, education, immigrant rights, environmental justice, sexual rights, and globalization. This encourages people of all minority groups to participate in this movement.

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What Is Reproductive Justice? | Meridians | Duke University Press

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Frustrated by the individualist approach of the "choice" paradigm used by the mainstream reproductive rights movement in the United States, a growing coalition of women of color organizations and their allies have sought to redefine and broaden the scope of reproductive rights by using a human rights framework.