2 of 8

No one can say to what extent behavior changed. What is sure is that a stable antiabortion consensus, based on Christian values, had been formed. It endured intact throughout the medieval period and into modern times.

Through Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and on to Barth and Bonhoeffer, Christian theologians have condemned abortion in the clearest terms. Aristotle's distinction between the formed and unformed fetus was carried on by some, for whom abortion was only murder 40 days after conception. (Yet even before then, it was a violation of developing humanity, and thus still wrong.) Therapeutic abortion, in which the life of the unborn can be sacrificed to save the life of a mother, was sometimes allowed. But the values of Greco-Roman society, in which the life of a child had meaning only as state or family granted it meaning, would not resurface for 1,500 years.

There were no written laws against the practice of abortion in colonial America; courts operated on the basis of English common law, by which abortion was illegal after "quickening," the time when a mother could feel the movement of her unborn child in the womb. The "quickening" distinction seems to have been a survival from the Aristotelian idea of a "formed" fetus, as it filtered through centuries of theological discussion.

"Quickening" might not have survived on the strength of its history alone, though; it had practical significance as well. There were no reliable pregnancy tests, and so until quickening, no one could be certain whether a woman was actually pregnant or merely experiencing some kind of menstrual "blockage." Doctors treated a "blockage" by doing just what they would do to carry out an early abortion. Before quickening, it was impossible to say whether an abortion was intended. There was no point in outlawing behavior that could not be ascertained.

In fact, since "quickening" was generally only known to the woman involved, it was legally difficult to try any kind of abortion case. American courts steered a lenient course with the few cases that came before them. In 1803 Britain passed a strong and clear antiabortion law, but it was not until 1821 that Connecticut passed the first American antiabortion statute. By 1840 most states still had no such law, and those that did rarely enforced them.

A dramatic change began in the decades after 1840: the number of abortions shot up. American conception dropped precipitately: the average American woman bore seven children in 1800, three and a half by 1900. Estimates of abortions ranged between one-fifth and one-third of all pregnancies. Before, abortion had been the refuge of desperate, unmarried women; now most abortions were by married women, using it as birth control. Abortion operations were not regarded as particularly dangerous, and the belief in quickening made them seem innocent as well. This was a period of rapid industrialization, with growing cities and easy transportation by railroad. Along with many aspects of American life, abortion became commercialized.

next page... |  2 of 8

share this page

January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47