Aubrey Prahl
Section 01
Abortion in Past Centuries
Doctors have been performing abortions for over 500,000 years. The history of abortion has reached back not just decades, but centuries and has always been a major debate among the world. Abortions in the 1800's were illegal because it was such a dangerous procedure and was considered immoral, women did not have the same rights as we do today. Although modern day American's have many opinions on whether abortion is moral or immoral, it has been practiced for centuries suggesting that values have changed into the modern day equivalent. [1: John Riddle, Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), Page #. ]
Some of the first doctors to preform an abortion was somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 years ago. In early historic times the Chinese, Greeks and Phoenicians had skilled surgeons who performed such terminations.
Soviet poster circa 1925. Title translation: "Abor...
English: Rep. Albert Wynn (left) joins Gloria Feld...
CDC chart on the number of abortions in the United...In John Riddles book he talks about abortion in history and what it meant. In the twelfth-century, women would use plants as a poison to kill their fetus. If a woman ate the plant, she put herself in an enormous amount of danger because she would either die or she would harm her body so much that her body would naturally abort the child. To this day there is no evidence on what women truly knew about fertility-controlling drugs. [2: John Riddle, Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).][3: Riddle, John M 1992. Pages 310, 181, 200, 208, 209. ]
The nineteenth century was a changing time for abortion rights because there were more social pressures as well as better education. America grew more relaxed and lawmakers were gearing up to deal with this issue. The first abortion legislation...