(Katha Pollitt, Abortion in History, www.theatlantic.com, May 1997).
A turning point in the history of abortion being regulated and legislated was the founding of the American Medical Association in 1847. They went on an all out campaign to ban abortions, in what was largely a professional move aimed to maximize their profitability, as well as uphold the Hippocratic Oath, which made abortion taboo. They wanted to establish their own supremacy over unqualified and untrained practitioners such as midwives and amateur providers of abortions.
Another driving motivation for the anti-abortion movement of the mid-to-late 1800's was the anti-Catholic and nativist tendencies of the pre-existing White, Anglo-Saxon Protest population which was more prevalent in the United States. Anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment was fairly common in the country at the time, as seen in well documented xenophobic and nativist campaigns during the time. When waves and waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe began immigrating, many people began to worry about the declining birth rates of the 'native' Protestant American population. Furthermore, there was a shift to more conservative tendencies in terms of social views on the subject as seen in the Comstock Laws and these anti-obscenity laws were a bell-weather of the times. Taking advantage of this convergence of many factors, the American Medical Association was able to lead the anti-abortion charge throughout the country and by beginning of the 1900s, the practice was outlawed throughout all constituent states of the USA. Many historians credit the AMA with almost single-handedly being able to criminalize the practice within the span of around 50 years. .
The strong abortion laws were initially taken very seriously in the beginning of the 20th century. Because of these laws, there were no advancements were made towards the abortion procedure.
