PART 6
EARLY AMERICA
***, MARRIAGE, CHILDREN, GAYS, LESBIANS, BOYS AS GIRLS, ABORTION,
BREECHING, FAMILY AND OTHER MYTHS
ABORTION:
A matter of historical fact, abortion were perfectly legal in this country
at the time of the framing of the Constitution, its ratification, framing
of the BORs and their ratification. Abortion remained legal for approx 100
year after that, and was perfectly acceptable to the churches of the day,
so long as such took place before the "quickening" which usually was
around
the 4th or sometimes 5th month.
Interesting side note as to why pressure was finally mounted to declare
such illegal is that it was pure politics. The relatively new AMA wanted
to
drive mid wives out of business, wanted to force doctors to join their
organizations, so they began courting politicians with money etc. Said
politicians then passed laws that made wet nurses illegal, abortions
illegal, unless performed by a doctor or at his advice, etc.
Here is one source:
Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, by
James
C. Mohr. Oxford University Press, (1978 -- hardback, 1979--paperback)
ISBN 0-19-502616-0
Chapters are as follows:
Abortion in America, 1800 - 1825
The First Wave of Abortion Legislation, 1821 - 1841
The Great Upsurge of Abortion, 1840 - 1880
The Social Character of Abortion in America, 1840 - 1880
The Transitional Legislation of, 1840 - 1860
The Physicians Crusade Against Abortion, 1857 - 1880
Public Opinion and the Abortion Issue, 1860 - 1880
Anti-Abortion Legislation, 1860 - 1880
Anti-Abortion as American Policy, 1880 -1900
Appendices
Case Studies from Medical Publications Involving Abortions in the
United States, 1839 - 1879
Case Studies from Medical Publications Involving Abortions in the
United States, 1880 - 1900
Anti-Abortion Activity on the part of State and Local Medical Societies.
==================================================
Another source is:
Intimate Matters, A History Of ***uality In America, by John D'Emilio &
Estelle B. Freedman, Perennial Library (1988)
--------- ----------- --------- ----
Although few women left records of their abortion experiences, other
sources suggest that the incidence of abortion increased significantly in
the nineteenth century. Estimates by reformers show that between 1800 and
1830, one abortion occurred for every twenty-five to thirty-five live
births. By the 1850s the pro****tion had increased to as many as one
abortion per every five to six live births. Some doctors pointed to higher
rates of stillbirths as proof that more women were using abortifacients.
It
is possible that abortion began to supplant infanticide as a last resort
for women who could not raise children. In at least one city, infanticide
rates decreased markedly during the late nineteenth century.(25) Many
doctors attributed the increase in abortions to married women who wished
to
limit family size, rather than to the traditional clients, unmarried women
seeking to avoid the stigma of illegitimate birth. As one professor of
medicine explained in 1857, abortion now involved not only those "who have
been deceived and ensnared by the seducer" but also "the virtuous and the
intelligent wife and mother." A re****t issued by the Michigan Board of
health in 1878 estimated that one-third of all pregnancies in the state
ended in abortion, and that seventy to eighty percent were secured
by "prosperous and otherwise respectable married women." (26)
In the early nineteenth century, neither doctors, women, nor judges
necessarily condemned these practices as long as they were performed
within
the early months of pregnancy. According to the prevalent doctrine of
"quickening," life did not begin until a woman felt the fetus move within
her, **after about three months.** (EMPHASIS MINE ) Laws enacted between
1820 and 1840 to regulate abortion retained the quickening doctrine. . .
Even when the state did prosecute for illegal abortion, the courts
remained
tolerant, as was the case in Mass., where not one conviction resulted from
thrity-two abortion trials between 1849 and 1857. Between 1860 and 1890,
however, forty states and territories enacted antiabortion statues, many
of
which rejected the quickening doctrine, placed limitations on
advertisements, and help transfer the authority for abortion from women to
doctors. (27) The new antiabortion laws, like the Comstock Act placed
obstacles in the way of controlling reproduction, but women and married
couples attempted to overcome them.
Intimate Matters, A History Of ***uality In America, by John D'Emilio &
Estelle B. Freedman, Perennial Library (1988) pp 65-66.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the absence of any legislation whatsoever on the subject of abortion in
the United States in 1800, the legal status of the practice was governed
by
the traditional British common law as interpreted by the local courts of
the new American states. For centuries prior to 1800 the key to the common
law's attitude toward abortion had been a phenomenon associated with
normal
gestation known as quickening. Quickening was the first perception of
fetal
movement by the pregnant woman herself. **Quickening generally occurred
near the midpoint of gestation, late in the fourth or early in the fifth
month, though it could and still does vary a good deal from one woman to
another.** (EMPHASIS MINE) The common law did not formally recognize the
existence of a fetus in criminal cases until it had quickened. After
quickening, the expulsion and destruction of a fetus without due cause was
considered a crime, because the fetus itself had manifested some semblance
of a separate existence: the ability to move. The crime was qualitatively
different from the destruction of a human being, however, and punished
less
harshly. Before quickening, actions that had the effect of terminating
what
turned out to have been an early pregnancy were not considered criminal
under the common law in effect in England and the United States in 1800.'
Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, by
James
C. Mohr. Oxford University Press, (1978 -- hardback, 1979--paperback) pp
3-4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carol Lee Smith contributed the following:
Quickening: "Mothers who have already felt movement in a previous
pregnancy are usually able to perceive quickening earlier (at
approximately 16 weeks) while first time mothers feel it a bit later (at
18 weeks).
Pregnancy is 10 lunar months long, approximately 280 days. 16 wks would
equal four lunar months and 18 would be half way thru the 5th lunar month.
quickening:
forgot to include the url:
http://www.parentsplace.com/pregnancy/trimester2/qa/0,3105,13224,00.html
16 weeks from LMP would be about 14 weeks
12 weeks would be a full three LUNAR months. 16 weeks would be four full
LUNAR months.
14 weeks would be smack dab in the middle of the fourth lunar month.
As the website I posted indicated, many women, especially those pregnant
for the first time, have difficulty distingui****ng between bowel rumblings
and fetal rumblings.
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why
"a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v.
Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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