abortion

A code revision in Maine in 1984 made attempted abortion of any woman "pregnant with child" an offense, whether such child be quick or not." Regardless of what method was used (41). The first wave of abortion legislation in American history emerged from the struggles of both legislatures and physicians to control medical practice rather than from public pressures to deal with abortion per se. Every one of the laws passed between 1821 and 1841 punished only the "person" who administered the abortifacients or performed the operation; none punished the woman herself in any way. The laws were aimed, in other words, at regulating the activities of apothecaries and physicians, not at dissuading woman from seeking abortions (43). The major increase in abortion in the U.S. start in the early 1840's three key changes began to take place in the patterns of abortion in the United States. These changes profoundly effected the evolution of abortion policy for the next 40 years. First, abortion came out into the public view; by the mid-1840's the fact that Americans practiced abortion was an obvious social reality, constantly visible for the population as a whole. The second overwhelming incident of abortion, according to the commentary observers began to rise in the early 1840's and remained at high levels through the 1870's. Abortion was no longer marginal practice whose incident probably approximated that of illegitimacy, but rather a wide spread social phenomenon during that period (46). Third, the types of woman having recourse to abortion seem to change; the dramatic surge of abortion in the U.S. after 1840 was attributed not to the increase in illegitimacy or a decline in marital fidelity, but rather to the increase use of abortion by white, married, Protestants, native born woman of the mid and upper class who either wished to delay their child bearing or already had all the children they wanted (46).