The History Of Legalized Abortion

Around the twelfth century BCE, if an Assyrian woman had an abortion, she was executed and the Assyrians didn't allow her body to be buried. However, the ancient Greeks allowed babies to be left outside alone to die and allowed most abortions. The Romans and most Greeks allowed the woman who wanted an abortion to take poison, which most times not only killed the baby but also the mother.

Islamic Countries
Egypt allowed abortions for health reasons and if there were found to be serious deformities before the baby was born. Egyptian Courts ruled that the fetus is a human being and is created at birth.
   Around 1990 in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia an abortion could only be performed if it was to save the mother's life; any other type was illegal. In Tunisia abortion was legal for the first three months no matter the reason.

Israel
Most all believe that abortion is permissible to save the mother's life. In 1997, (the Jerusalem Post, March 22, 97) the head of the obstetrics and gynecology department Professor Shlomo Mashiah explained that 16,000 abortions are performed a year in Israel and there are over 4,000-6,000 illegal abortions performed a year.

America
After the American Revolution when America became the United States, most of the laws that had been traditions or laws before stayed the same.
   The first abortion law was passed in 1821 by the state of Connecticut, which punished anyone who performed an abortion after quickening (movement of the fetus) had occurred. In 1847 the American Medical Association was founded. This organization of doctors opposed abortion after science had proven that the fetus was alive even before the quickening stage.
   In 1959 the American Institute presented a model law, which allowed doctors to perform an abortion if the mother's mental or physical heath was in danger or if her life was in danger. Two doctors had to agree that an abortion was indeed needed.
   Two things occurred that made it easier for doctors to perform an abortion. One, in 1960 a rubella measles epidemic occurred across most of the United States. This disease caused serious health problems for pregnant women and even greater dangers for the unborn baby. Many women asked for and received abortions. The second in 1962 was a drug called Thalidomide that was widely used in Europe and later in the US for the calming of the nerves. It was not tested before it was given to pregnant women and caused many birth defects and seirous health problems for the babies and the mothers if they continued the pregnancy.
   Both of these situations brought about great interest in abortion. The women's movement began at the end of the 60's when many women were beginning to believe that among other things, abortion was a right and part of their freedom.
   Slowly but surely over the next decade laws were passed that made it easier to get an abortion. Colorado, North Carolina, and California were the first states to pass laws. By 1973, 13 states had passed the same or similar laws. Throughout the 70's many states including Washington and New York had legalized all abortions. New York allowed abortions to be performed up to twenty-four weeks into the pregnancy.
   In 1973, the Supreme Court ruling concerning the Roe v. Wade case made abortion legal without restrictions in the first trimester and legalized abortion with restrictions after the first trimester.

China
In China the government controls how many children a family can have. In 1979, the government enforced the one child per family policy. Then in 1983, China conducted a nationwide operation where sterilization for couples was enforced if they had two or more children. Any unplanned pregnancies were aborted. Most women could only have one child before they were to be sterilized, in which the woman's ovaries were removed. Abortion is considered a form of birth control.
  In 1993 China put forward a new law that supported abortions that would prevent the births of children that might have birth defects. Many times because of the laws passed by the government stating that a family could only have so many children, parents find out the sex of the child. If the unborn baby is a girl, they often abort the pregnancy because most families want boys to carry on the family name.

India
Abortion was legalized in 1969 to keep down the population. Many times the abortions were done by midwives or those without medical experience. The methods used to abort the babies vary from the inserting of objects such as sticks and rocks to massaging the stomach.
   From 1973-74, it's estimated that 900,000 sterilizations were done; 74-75, 1.35 million; and 75-76, 2.5 million. Just as in China, boys are preferred. It has been reported that twenty percent of maternal deaths are from unsafe abortions.

Russia
It has been estimated by the Russian government that over 20,000 women a day are having abortions. The average woman there will, in her lifetime, have two to seven abortions. In one year the rate was 216 abortions per 100 births. Many obstetricians, doctors, and gynecologists perform abortions full-time everyday.