The ruling of Roe v. Wade came down in 1973. So-called pro-lifers have been trying to get it overturned ever since. The debate has become a HUGE hot-button issue in politics. Republican pro-life politicians have been laying on ridiculous restrictions to women’s legal rights for abortion. It has become a huge deal to be “abortion positive” as a pro-choice woman.
Politicians in the 70s were trying to appeal to people on both sides of the issue. Back then, it was okay to be a conservative Republican AND support abortion access. The pro-lifers wanted to ban abortion, but they realized that women would seek it out if they didn’t have alternatives. Some conservatives were okay with contraception.
Back then, there wasn’t all of this violence surrounding the abortion argument. A big issue this year involves doctored videos from a pro-life group saying Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue. The Republicans jumped on this and now they are fighting to completely defund the women’s clinic even though they provide many essential health services for low-income women.
This movement did not begin with Roe v. Wade, though. Doctors were trying to ban abortion as far back as the 1820s. During the decade, they banned abortion after the fourth month of pregnancy. Because of physicians and legislators, most abortions were banned by 1900.
The “pro-choice” versus “pro-life” argument wasn’t quite as static. There are some people today that have mixed views, but many people seem to be either dead against or for it. No woman should be forced to bear a child that she does not want to. The debate ebbed for a while under the reign of the Comstock law which banned “immoral” literature.
Susan B. Anthony wrote against abortion at the time, mostly because it was a VERY unsafe procedure for women. She believed that preventing abortions was better. The movement was trying to prevent abortions before women became pregnant.
Abortions were completely banned by 1965. The Roe v. Wade ruling declared the bans unconstitutional. So, hopefully, we can keep abortion legal despite the Republicans’ efforts to ban them again.
Featured image via flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
