The History of America’s Abortion Laws

The idea of race, gender, and class when it comes to abortion laws in the 19th century, has significant power and influence. Starting in 1858, the American Medical Association began a campaign to criminalize abortion at every stage of pregnancy. Almost all states passed laws criminalizing abortions by 1890. It was not until the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, that women were able to gain abortion rights since these criminalizing laws had been passed.

During the 19th century, physicians had authority over performing necessary abortions. Physicians at this time would often have racially motivated arguments regarding abortions. For instance, physicians convinced the public and politicians that abortions were an endangerment to society, however, this argument suggests an underlying agenda of an Anglo-Saxon race project. Anglo-Saxon political control relied on Anglo-Saxons showing up to the polls. With an increase in abortions, Anglo-Saxons feared they would lose their political dominance over society. This shows how racial structures surrounding reproduction are tied to the gender expectations of women’s roles as mothers.

With Anglo-Saxons facing a dramatic increase in immigration amid the Civil War, they imposed racial differences that are absolutely arrogant today. As immigrants continued to move to America, Anglo-Saxons treated the Irish, Italians, and Germans as different races from their own. In a society where a child is given worth based on the color of their skin or ethnicity the moment they are born, there is no doubt reproductive rights are absolutely connected to racial politics. Race had a different meaning at the time, where it acknowledged a set of contradictory ideas of human differences and similarities. In modern times, we refer race to bodily differences such as skin color. 

In the 19th century, women were valued based on their ability to bear children. For example, to men, the end of menstruation in women was equivalent to an end in womanhood. The value of reproduction in women became overly controlling and abhorrent. Physicians were against both abortion and contraceptives because they believed that they prevented women from pursuing their role in society as mothers. Physicians would fear-monger the public by exaggerating the dangers and risks of abortions, where even if a woman faced no physical injuries they believed she would forever have moral damage.

Class was heavily involved in abortion laws, where women who had an abortion were described as “vain and fashionable” (Beisel & Kay, 2004) This is a historically obvious indicator that abortions were only available to the high class. Physicians believed these women of high status and regard, who were getting abortions, were denying their moral responsibility to their families. 

Physicians continued to make racial claims by wanting to gain control over the reproduction of the “native” Anglo-Saxon women, due to the racial threat abortion held regarding the decrease in Anglo-Saxon births and increase in Irish births. They also made racial arguments by comparing abortion to infanticide in “barbarous” nations, along with comparing women who aborted to “barbarians”. They believed that if Anglo-Saxon Protestant women continued with abortions that political and social dominance would be overtaken by the Irish Catholics. These racial claims then backed up their argument that this would lead to the collapse of American civilization. Physicians then argued that the state must control women’s reproductive capacity and rights to secure the future of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

Nineteenth-century feminists were surprisingly against contraceptives. Rather, feminists advocated for “voluntary motherhood” where women would only engage in intercourse if they wanted to be a mom. Anthony and Stanton argued that the middle class actually wanted to guard motherhood because being a mother was the highest role in society a woman could obtain. The underlying societal issue “voluntary motherhood” attacked was marital rape. Anthony and Stanton argued that the rise in abortion was caused by the normalization of marital rape. Women aborted because social expectations of marital sexuality and marital laws led to them having no bodily autonomy. It was normal for husbands to have control and abuse their wives’ sexuality. Suffragists instead believed that a woman’s capacity to reproduce should be controlled by the individual woman, rather than their husband. 

Racially, the Anglo-Saxons no longer exist. Racial privileges given to these European settlers due to the color of their skin, are now grouped as one race being “white”. This is heavily ironic considering Anglo-Saxons are now joined into the same group of people they once called “white” to treat them with inferiority and racism. In the 19th century, any rhetoric about women in an abortion debate referred to the racially dominant group of women. Current sociologists can only benefit society by truly understanding the depths of racial politics through contextual history.