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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade – the decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years – has shifted the legal battle over abortion to the states, with some prohibiting the procedure and others moving to safeguard it.

As the nation’s post-Roe chapter begins, here are key facts about Americans’ views on abortion, based on two Pew Research Center polls: one conducted from June 25-July 4 , just after this year’s high court ruling, and one conducted in March , before an earlier leaked draft of the opinion became public.

This analysis primarily draws from two Pew Research Center surveys, one surveying 10,441 U.S. adults conducted March 7-13, 2022, and another surveying 6,174 U.S. adults conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Here are the questions used for the March survey , along with responses, and the questions used for the survey from June and July , along with responses.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.  Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. About six-in-ten adults (57%) disapprove of the court’s decision that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion and that abortion laws can be set by states, including 43% who strongly disapprove, according to the summer survey. About four-in-ten (41%) approve, including 25% who strongly approve.

About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (82%) disapprove of the court’s decision, including nearly two-thirds (66%) who strongly disapprove. Most Republicans and GOP leaners (70%) approve , including 48% who strongly approve.

Most women (62%) disapprove of the decision to end the federal right to an abortion. More than twice as many women strongly disapprove of the court’s decision (47%) as strongly approve of it (21%). Opinion among men is more divided: 52% disapprove (37% strongly), while 47% approve (28% strongly).

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the summer survey – little changed since the March survey conducted just before the ruling. That includes 29% of Americans who say it should be legal in all cases and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases. About a third of U.S. adults (36%) say abortion should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases.

Generally, Americans’ views of whether abortion should be legal remained relatively unchanged in the past few years , though support fluctuated somewhat in previous decades.

Relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the legality of abortion – either supporting or opposing it at all times, regardless of circumstances. The March survey found that support or opposition to abortion varies substantially depending on such circumstances as when an abortion takes place during a pregnancy, whether the pregnancy is life-threatening or whether a baby would have severe health problems.

While Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on the legality of abortion have long differed, the 46 percentage point partisan gap today is considerably larger than it was in the recent past, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling. The wider gap has been largely driven by Democrats: Today, 84% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 72% in 2016 and 63% in 2007. Republicans’ views have shown far less change over time: Currently, 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, nearly identical to the 39% who said this in 2007.

However, the partisan divisions over whether abortion should generally be legal tell only part of the story. According to the March survey, sizable shares of Democrats favor restrictions on abortion under certain circumstances, while majorities of Republicans favor abortion being legal in some situations , such as in cases of rape or when the pregnancy is life-threatening.

There are wide religious divides in views of whether abortion should be legal , the summer survey found. An overwhelming share of religiously unaffiliated adults (83%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do six-in-ten Catholics. Protestants are divided in their views: 48% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 50% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Majorities of Black Protestants (71%) and White non-evangelical Protestants (61%) take the position that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while about three-quarters of White evangelicals (73%) say it should be illegal in all (20%) or most cases (53%).

In the March survey, 72% of White evangelicals said that the statement “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” reflected their views extremely or very well . That’s much greater than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (32%), Black Protestants (38%) and Catholics (44%) who said the same. Overall, 38% of Americans said that statement matched their views extremely or very well.

Catholics, meanwhile, are divided along religious and political lines in their attitudes about abortion, according to the same survey. Catholics who attend Mass regularly are among the country’s strongest opponents of abortion being legal, and they are also more likely than those who attend less frequently to believe that life begins at conception and that a fetus has rights. Catholic Republicans, meanwhile, are far more conservative on a range of abortion questions than are Catholic Democrats.

Women (66%) are more likely than men (57%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling.

More than half of U.S. adults – including 60% of women and 51% of men – said in March that women should have a greater say than men in setting abortion policy . Just 3% of U.S. adults said men should have more influence over abortion policy than women, with the remainder (39%) saying women and men should have equal say.

The March survey also found that by some measures, women report being closer to the abortion issue than men . For example, women were more likely than men to say they had given “a lot” of thought to issues around abortion prior to taking the survey (40% vs. 30%). They were also considerably more likely than men to say they personally knew someone (such as a close friend, family member or themselves) who had had an abortion (66% vs. 51%) – a gender gap that was evident across age groups, political parties and religious groups.

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms , the March survey found. Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say having an abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that having an abortion is morally wrong in most cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable in most cases. An additional 21% do not consider having an abortion a moral issue.

Among Republicans, most (68%) say that having an abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Only about three-in-ten Democrats (29%) hold a similar view. Instead, about four-in-ten Democrats say having an abortion is morally  acceptable  in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say it is not a moral issue. 

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say having an abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view having an abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see having an abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

• Religion & Abortion

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in europe, nearly a year after roe’s demise, americans’ views of abortion access increasingly vary by where they live, by more than two-to-one, americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state, most latinos say democrats care about them and work hard for their vote, far fewer say so of gop, most popular.

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• Made by History

The Abortion Fight Isn’t a ‘War on Women.’ It’s a War on Poor Women

O n April 9, Arizona’s supreme court ruled that its 1864 almost total abortion ban remains in place. That came a week after Florida’s supreme court upheld an abortion ban, triggering an even stricter six-week ban. The onslaught of anti-abortion laws and court decisions has led liberals like California Governor Gavin Newsom to assert that the political right has declared “a war on women .”

This concept isn’t new, but it actually distorts the history of anti-abortion legislation. Abortion regulations have never applied equally to all doctors or all women. Understanding this history reveals that today — as in the past — abortion bans affect both women and providers differently depending upon factors like their race, class, and social standing. The people impacted most have changed over time, but one thing has remained consistent: abortion restrictions are less a war on women than a war on poor women.

The conditions that created these class and social dynamics began to emerge almost two centuries ago. In 1829, for example, New York State enacted a law defining abortion as second-degree manslaughter — but only if the woman was “pregnant with a quick child,” that is, if she’d felt the fetus moving inside of her, something that typically happened around 20 weeks. 

In the late 1850s, that law — and others like it — came under attack by Boston doctor Horatio R. Storer. In an 1859 essay, he argued that these laws defined the crime of abortion too leniently. “By the Moral Law, THE WILFUL KILLING OF A HUMAN BEING AT ANY STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE IS MURDER.” He also argued, without evidence, that women could face dire medical consequences from an abortion, including, on occasion, death. 

But Storer wasn’t just worried about women as a universal class. He reserved his greatest scorn for white middle- and upper-class women, whom he claimed were seeking abortions in greater numbers than poor and immigrant women. He claimed that middle-class women boasted to each other about their successful abortions, in the same way they might brag about a new dress or a social coup. In Storer’s view, these women who sought abortions were not just victims of a purportedly dangerous medical procedure, but dangerous criminals who were outside the reach of the law.

Read More: What to Know About the Arizona Supreme Court Abortion Ban Ruling

Storer’s anti-abortion activism occurred at a time when he and other “medical men” of similar social standing were attempting to professionalize medicine by implementing rigorous educational and training standards. As part of this push, these doctors hoped to take over what would become the lucrative fields of obstetrics and gynecology from female midwives and other providers they considered untrained and dangerous — those who Storer claimed “frequently cause abortion openly and without disguise.”

In Storer’s view, white, educated “medical men” like him had to seek justice as “the physical guardians of women and their offspring.” It was their responsibility to “stand… in the breach fast making in the public morality, decency, and conscience.” Behind these righteous pronouncements, though, lurked Storer’s unspoken fear: that if men like him did not intervene, middle-class wives would shirk their childbearing duties, leaving their husbands without heirs while poor and immigrant families swelled their ranks. 

Storer spent the latter part of the 1850s, and much of the 1860s, organizing letter-writing campaigns by new professional medical societies, including state affiliates of the American Medical Association (AMA). He hoped to pressure states into passing ever-stricter abortion bans. In New York, the effort paid off in 1869 when the legislature made abortion second-degree manslaughter at any stage of pregnancy if it resulted in the death of the mother or the termination of the pregnancy.

In the fall of 1871, the new statute led to the conviction of abortion provider Jacob Rosenzweig for manslaughter in the death of Alice Bowlsby in New York City. Railway officials had found Bowlsby's body in a trunk bound for Chicago only days after the New York Times had published an exposé on abortionists, including Rosenzweig, titled “The Evil of the Age.”

The paper had described Rosenzweig as having a $40 degree, and purportedly knowing “more of the saloon business than of medicine.” Nonetheless, he did “a large business” — part of a “frightful profusion” of discreet abortions performed by untrained practitioners. 

It took less than two hours for a jury to find Rosenzweig guilty, and a judge sentenced him to seven years’ hard labor in the Albany State Penitentiary, the maximum sentence possible.

Meanwhile, just weeks after Bowlsby's death, a young Albany waitress named Margaret Campbell died from an abortion performed by “Mrs. Dr. Emma Burleigh,” a well known abortionist. After colleagues of Burleigh’s tried to cover it up — including spiriting Campbell’s body away to an unmarked grave in the local cemetery — a second autopsy revealed that the young woman’s abdomen was inflamed, her uterus was missing, and her breasts were full of milk. A laceration was found in her vagina, “occupied by a clot of blood.”

The outcome for Burleigh, however, was very different than for Rosenzweig. Under cross-examination at the coroner’s inquest, she got the doctors who performed the autopsy to admit that alternate explanations existed for all of their findings. There was no definitive proof that Campbell had been pregnant, that she’d had an abortion, or that the operation had caused her death. The jury agreed that the cause of death was simple peritonitis , and Burleigh walked free. 

The disparity between the two cases was no accident. The abortion statute really wasn’t about protecting women from unqualified practitioners, nor was it a war on women, as Storer might have hoped. Instead, it was a weapon of class warfare. 

Rosenzweig was a Jewish immigrant — a dangerous outsider. Meanwhile, Burleigh — who lied about having a medical degree in advertisements, but had taken medical classes — was an educated white woman. That made her less of a threat to the native-born doctors like Storer who were working to consolidate medical authority under their own control. 

Class also separated the two victims: Newspaper accounts of Bowlsby’s death painted her as a young lady from “respectable society,” with “relatives in the highest circles.” In other words, she was an ideal victim for the villain of the immigrant doctor. Campbell, by contrast, was, in the words of one prominent abortion opponent, an obscure Irish waitress who was “evidently…not of correct moral habits.”

Read More: How Ronald Reagan Helped Abortion Take Over the Republican Agenda

In 1872, New York toughened the law further, defining abortion as a felony with a possible sentence of 20 years in prison. Yet even under this law, wealthy, typically white women continued to seek and receive safe abortions. Often, it was trained male physicians of similar social and class standing who performed them without legal penalties. Strict enforcement of abortion laws didn’t ramp up until the mid-20th century , when medical care moved from private offices exclusive to a well-off clientele into public hospitals and clinics serving the poor along with the wealthy. 

Understanding how New York’s abortion laws functioned in the 19th century creates a new perspective on abortion bans in 2024. 

They, too, are far more of a weapon of class warfare than a war on all women.

Strict abortion bans are more likely to exist in states where a high number of women of childbearing age have incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line. Of the five states with the highest levels of poverty among women of childbearing age —  Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, and New Mexico — all but New Mexico fall into the Guttmacher Institute’s  “most restrictive” abortion law category. Poverty strengthens the effects of abortion bans, since poor women can’t afford to miss work, book travel, arrange childcare, and pay out of pocket for procedures if they do not have health insurance. 

Abortion bans also exacerbate poverty. A University of California San Francisco study found that women denied an abortion saw an increase in poverty for at least four years and were more likely to see drops in their credit scores . These impacts don’t hurt poor women in isolation: abortion bans also put their children, their husbands, and their wider communities at a disadvantage by making the cycle of poverty harder to escape.

By contrast, just as in the 19th century, wealthier women — those who have health insurance, who can afford a pharmaceutical or surgical copay, and who have the means to take time off work and travel to a state with more lenient regulations — are far more insulated from the most potent and cascading impacts of abortion bans. So, too, are their families and communities.  

As in the 19th century, class, hand in hand with race, provides a more useful lens of analysis for understanding abortion legislation in the U.S. In restricting abortion, “medical men” like Storer worked to consolidate medical authority among the white upper classes. Today, it is often men from a similarly high social and class standing, serving in state legislatures and on courts, who are once again pushing for abortion restrictions that most adversely impact Americans with less social and economic capital.

R.E. Fulton is an independent historian of medicine, gender, and crime whose work focuses on abortion practitioners in 19th-century New York. Their book The Abortionist of Howard Street , out May 2024 from Cornell University Press, studies the life and career of Josephine McCarty, alias Emma Burleigh.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here . Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors .

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Is Abortion Sacred?

By Jia Tolentino

Twenty years ago, when I was thirteen, I wrote an entry in my journal about abortion, which began, “I have this huge thing weighing on me.” That morning, in Bible class, which I’d attended every day since the first grade at an evangelical school, in Houston, my teacher had led us in an exercise called Agree/Disagree. He presented us with moral propositions, and we stood up and physically chose sides. “Abortion is always wrong,” he offered, and there was no disagreement. We all walked to the wall that meant “agree.”

Then I raised my hand and, according to my journal, said, “I think it is always morally wrong and absolutely murder, but if a woman is raped, I respect her right to get an abortion.” Also, I said, if a woman knew the child would face a terrible life, the child might be better off. “Dead?” the teacher asked. My classmates said I needed to go to the other side, and I did. “I felt guilty and guilty and guilty,” I wrote in my journal. “I didn’t feel like a Christian when I was on that side of the room. I felt terrible, actually. . . . But I still have that thought that if a woman was raped, she has her right. But that’s so strange—she has a right to kill what would one day be her child? That issue is irresolved in my mind and it will eat at me until I sort it out.”

I had always thought of abortion as it had been taught to me in school: it was a sin that irresponsible women committed to cover up another sin, having sex in a non-Christian manner. The moral universe was a stark battle of virtue and depravity, in which the only meaningful question about any possible action was whether or not it would be sanctioned in the eyes of God. Men were sinful, and the goodness of women was the essential bulwark against the corruption of the world. There was suffering built into this framework, but suffering was noble; justice would prevail, in the end, because God always provided for the faithful. It was these last tenets, prosperity-gospel principles that neatly erase the material causes of suffering in our history and our social policies—not only regarding abortion but so much else—which toppled for me first. By the time I went to college, I understood that I was pro-choice.

America is, in many ways, a deeply religious country—the only wealthy Western democracy in which more than half of the population claims to pray every day. (In Europe, the figure is twenty-two per cent.) Although seven out of ten American women who get abortions identify as Christian, the fight to make the procedure illegal is an almost entirely Christian phenomenon. Two-thirds of the national population and nearly ninety per cent of Congress affirm a tradition in which a teen-age girl continuing an unplanned pregnancy allowed for the salvation of the world, in which a corrupt government leader who demanded a Massacre of the Innocents almost killed the baby Jesus and damned us all in the process, and in which the Son of God entered the world as what the godless dare to call a “clump of cells.”

For centuries, most Christians believed that human personhood began months into the long course of pregnancy. It was only in the twentieth century that a dogmatic narrative, in which every pregnancy is an iteration of the same static story of creation, began both to shape American public policy and to occlude the reality of pregnancy as volatile and ambiguous—as a process in which creation and destruction run in tandem. This newer narrative helped to erase an instinctive, long-held understanding that pregnancy does not begin with the presence of a child, and only sometimes ends with one. Even within the course of the same pregnancy, a person and the fetus she carries can shift between the roles of lover and beloved, host and parasite, vessel and divinity, victim and murderer; each body is capable of extinguishing the other, although one cannot survive alone. There is no human relationship more complex, more morally unstable than this.

The idea that a fetus is not just a full human but a superior and kinglike one—a being whose survival is so paramount that another person can be legally compelled to accept harm, ruin, or death to insure it—is a recent invention. For most of history, women ended unwanted pregnancies as they needed to, taking herbal or plant-derived preparations on their own or with the help of female healers and midwives, who presided over all forms of treatment and care connected with pregnancy. They were likely enough to think that they were simply restoring their menstruation, treating a blockage of blood. Pregnancy was not confirmed until “quickening,” the point at which the pregnant person could feel fetal movement, a measurement that relied on her testimony. Then as now, there was often nothing that distinguished the result of an abortion—the body expelling fetal tissue—from a miscarriage.

Ancient records of abortifacient medicine are plentiful; ancient attempts to regulate abortion are rare. What regulations existed reflect concern with women’s behavior and marital propriety, not with fetal life. The Code of the Assura, from the eleventh century B.C.E., mandated death for married women who got abortions without consulting their husbands; when husbands beat their wives hard enough to make them miscarry, the punishment was a fine. The first known Roman prohibition on abortion dates to the second century and prescribes exile for a woman who ends her pregnancy, because “it might appear scandalous that she should be able to deny her husband of children without being punished.” Likewise, the early Christian Church opposed abortion not as an act of murder but because of its association with sexual sin. (The Bible offers ambiguous guidance on the question of when life begins: Genesis 2:7 arguably implies that it begins at first breath; Exodus 21:22-24 suggests that, in Old Testament law, a fetus was not considered a person; Jeremiah 1:5 describes God’s hand in creation even “before I formed you in the womb.” Nowhere does the Bible clearly and directly address abortion.) Augustine, in the fourth century, favored the idea that God endowed a fetus with a soul only after its body was formed—a point that Augustine placed, in line with Aristotelian tradition, somewhere between forty and eighty days into its development. “There cannot yet be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation when it is not formed in flesh, and so not yet endowed with sense,” he wrote. This was more or less the Church’s official position; it was affirmed eight centuries later by Thomas Aquinas.

In the early modern era, European attitudes began to change. The Black Death had dramatically lowered the continent’s population, and dealt a blow to most forms of economic activity; the Reformation had weakened the Church’s position as the essential intermediary between the layman and God. The social scientist Silvia Federici has argued, in her book “ Caliban and the Witch ,” that church and state waged deliberate campaigns to force women to give birth, in service of the emerging capitalist economy. “Starting in the mid-16th century, while Portuguese ships were returning from Africa with their first human cargoes, all the European governments began to impose the severest penalties against contraception, abortion, and infanticide,” Federici notes. Midwives and “wise women” were prosecuted for witchcraft, a catchall crime for deviancy from procreative sex. For the first time, male doctors began to control labor and delivery, and, Federici writes, “in the case of a medical emergency” they “prioritized the life of the fetus over that of the mother.” She goes on: “While in the Middle Ages women had been able to use various forms of contraceptives, and had exercised an undisputed control over the birthing process, from now on their wombs became public territory, controlled by men and the state.”

Martin Luther and John Calvin, the most influential figures of the Reformation, did not address abortion at any length. But Catholic doctrine started to shift, albeit slowly. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V labelled both abortion and contraception as homicide. This pronouncement was reversed three years later, by Pope Gregory XIV, who declared that abortion was only homicide if it took place after ensoulment, which he identified as occurring around twenty-four weeks into a pregnancy. Still, theologians continued to push the idea of embryonic humanity; in 1621, the physician Paolo Zacchia, an adviser to the Vatican, proclaimed that the soul was present from the moment of conception. Still, it was not until 1869 that Pope Pius IX affirmed this doctrine, proclaiming abortion at any point in pregnancy to be a sin punishable by excommunication.

When I found out I was pregnant, at the beginning of 2020, I wondered how the experience would change my understanding of life, of fetal personhood, of the morality of reproduction. It’s been years since I traded the echo chamber of evangelical Texas for the echo chamber of progressive Brooklyn, but I can still sometimes feel the old world view flickering, a photographic negative underneath my vision. I have come to believe that abortion should be universally accessible, regulated only by medical codes and ethics, and not by the criminal-justice system. Still, in passing moments, I can imagine upholding the idea that our sole task when it comes to protecting life is to end the practice of abortion; I can imagine that seeming profoundly moral and unbelievably urgent. I would only need to think of the fetus in total isolation—to imagine that it were not formed and contained by another body, and that body not formed and contained by a family, or a society, or a world.

As happens to many women, though, I became, if possible, more militant about the right to an abortion in the process of pregnancy, childbirth, and caregiving. It wasn’t just the difficult things that had this effect—the paralyzing back spasms, the ragged desperation of sleeplessness, the thundering doom that pervaded every cell in my body when I weaned my child. And it wasn’t just my newly visceral understanding of the anguish embedded in the facts of American family life. (A third of parents in one of the richest countries in the world struggle to afford diapers ; in the first few months of the pandemic , as Jeff Bezos’s net worth rose by forty-eight billion dollars, sixteen per cent of households with children did not have enough to eat.) What multiplied my commitment to abortion were the beautiful things about motherhood: in particular, the way I felt able to love my baby fully and singularly because I had chosen to give my body and life over to her. I had not been forced by law to make another person with my flesh, or to tear that flesh open to bring her into the world; I hadn’t been driven by need to give that new person away to a stranger in the hope that she would never go to bed hungry. I had been able to choose this permanent rearrangement of my existence. That volition felt sacred.

Abortion is often talked about as a grave act that requires justification, but bringing a new life into the world felt, to me, like the decision that more clearly risked being a moral mistake. The debate about abortion in America is “rooted in the largely unacknowledged premise that continuing a pregnancy is a prima facie moral good,” the pro-choice Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters writes . But childbearing, Peters notes, is a morally weighted act, one that takes place in a world of limited and unequally distributed resources. Many people who get abortions—the majority of whom are poor women who already have children—understand this perfectly well. “We ought to take the decision to continue a pregnancy far more seriously than we do,” Peters writes.

I gave birth in the middle of a pandemic that previewed a future of cross-species viral transmission exacerbated by global warming, and during a summer when ten million acres on the West Coast burned . I knew that my child would not only live in this degrading world but contribute to that degradation. (“Every year, the average American emits enough carbon to melt ten thousand tons of ice in the Antarctic ice sheets,” David Wallace-Wells writes in his book “ The Uninhabitable Earth .”) Just before COVID arrived, the science writer Meehan Crist published an essay in the London Review of Books titled “Is it OK to have a child?” (The title alludes to a question that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once asked in a live stream, on Instagram.) Crist details the environmental damage that we are doing, and the costs for the planet and for us and for those who will come after. Then she turns the question on its head. The idea of choosing whether or not to have a child, she writes, is predicated on a fantasy of control that “quickly begins to dissipate when we acknowledge that the conditions for human flourishing are distributed so unevenly, and that, in an age of ecological catastrophe, we face a range of possible futures in which these conditions no longer reliably exist.”

In late 2021, as Omicron brought New York to another COVID peak, a Gen Z boy in a hoodie uploaded a TikTok , captioned “yall better delete them baby names out ya notes its 60 degrees in december.” By then, my baby had become a toddler. Every night, as I set her in the crib, she chirped good night to the elephants, koalas, and tigers on the wall, and I tried not to think about extinction. My decision to have her risked, or guaranteed, additional human suffering; it opened up new chances for joy and meaning. There is unknowability in every reproductive choice.

As the German historian Barbara Duden writes in her book “ Disembodying Women ,” the early Christians believed that both the bodies that created life and the world that sustained it were proof of the “continual creative activity of God.” Women and nature were aligned, in this view, as the material sources of God’s plan. “The word nature is derived from nascitura , which means ‘birthing,’ and nature is imagined and felt to be like a pregnant womb, a matrix, a mother,” Duden writes. But, in recent decades, she notes, the natural world has begun to show its irreparable damage. The fetus has been left as a singular totem of life and divinity, to be protected, no matter the costs, even if everything else might fall.

The scholar Katie Gentile argues that, in times of cultural crisis and upheaval, the fetus functions as a “site of projected and displaced anxieties,” a “fantasy of wholeness in the face of overwhelming anxiety and an inability to have faith in a progressive, better future.” The more degraded actual life becomes on earth, the more fervently conservatives will fight to protect potential life in utero. We are locked into the destruction of the world that birthed all of us; we turn our attention, now, to the worlds—the wombs—we think we can still control.

By the time that the Catholic Church decided that abortion at any point, for any reason, was a sin, scientists had identified the biological mechanism behind human reproduction, in which a fetus develops from an embryo that develops from a zygote, the single-celled organism created by the union of egg and sperm. With this discovery, in the mid-nineteenth century, women lost the most crucial point of authority over the stories of their pregnancies. Other people would be the ones to tell us, from then on, when life began.

At the time, abortion was largely unregulated in the United States, a country founded and largely populated by Protestants. But American physicians, through the then newly formed American Medical Association, mounted a campaign to criminalize it, led by a gynecologist named Horatio Storer, who once described the typical abortion patient as a “wretch whose account with the Almighty is heaviest with guilt.” (Storer was raised Unitarian but later converted to Catholicism.) The scholars Paul Saurette and Kelly Gordon have argued that these doctors, whose profession was not as widely respected as it would later become, used abortion “as a wedge issue,” one that helped them portray their work “as morally and professionally superior to the practice of midwifery.” By 1910, abortion was illegal in every state, with exceptions only to save the life of “the mother.” (The wording of such provisions referred to all pregnant people as mothers, whether or not they had children, thus quietly inserting a presumption of fetal personhood.) A series of acts known as the Comstock laws had rendered contraception, abortifacient medicine, and information about reproductive control widely inaccessible, by criminalizing their distribution via the U.S. Postal Service. People still sought abortions, of course: in the early years of the Great Depression, there were as many as seven hundred thousand abortions annually. These underground procedures were dangerous; several thousand women died from abortions every year.

This is when the contemporary movements for and against the right to abortion took shape. Those who favored legal abortion did not, in these years, emphasize “choice,” Daniel K. Williams notes in his book “ Defenders of the Unborn .” They emphasized protecting the health of women, protecting doctors, and preventing the births of unwanted children. Anti-abortion activists, meanwhile, argued, as their successors do, that they were defending human life and human rights. The horrors of the Second World War gave the movement a lasting analogy: “Logic would lead us from abortion to the gas chamber,” a Catholic clergyman wrote, in October, 1962.

Ultrasound imaging, invented in the nineteen-fifties, completed the transformation of pregnancy into a story that, by default, was narrated to women by other people—doctors, politicians, activists. In 1965, Life magazine published a photo essay by Lennart Nilsson called “ Drama of Life Before Birth ,” and put the image of a fetus at eighteen weeks on its cover. The photos produced an indelible, deceptive image of the fetus as an isolated being—a “spaceman,” as Nilsson wrote, floating in a void, entirely independent from the person whose body creates it. They became totems of the anti-abortion movement; Life had not disclosed that all but one had been taken of aborted fetuses, and that Nilsson had lit and posed their bodies to give the impression that they were alive.

In 1967, Colorado became the first state to allow abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or medical emergency. A group of Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis began operating an abortion-referral service led by the pastor of Judson Memorial Church, in Manhattan; the resulting network of pro-choice clerics eventually spanned the country, and referred an estimated four hundred and fifty thousand women to safe abortions. The evangelical magazine Christianity Today held a symposium of prominent theologians, in 1968, which resulted in a striking statement: “Whether or not the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” Meanwhile, the priest James McHugh became the director of the National Right to Life Committee, and equated fetuses to the other vulnerable people whom faithful Christians were commanded to protect: the old, the sick, the poor. As states began to liberalize their abortion laws, the anti-abortion movement attracted followers—many of them antiwar, pro-welfare Catholics—using the language of civil rights, and adopted the label “pro-life.”

W. A. Criswell, a Dallas pastor who served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1968 to 1970, said, shortly after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade , that “it was only after a child was born and had life separate from his mother that it became an individual person,” and that “it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and the future should be allowed.” But the Court’s decision accelerated a political and theological transformation that was already under way: by 1979, Criswell, like the S.B.C., had endorsed a hard-line anti-abortion stance. Evangelical leadership, represented by such groups as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority , joined with Catholics to oppose the secularization of popular culture, becoming firmly conservative—and a powerful force in Republican politics. Bible verses that express the idea of divine creation, such as Psalm 139 (“For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb,” in the New International Version’s translation), became policy explanations for prohibiting abortion.

In 1984, scientists used ultrasound to detect fetal cardiac activity at around six weeks’ gestation—a discovery that has been termed a “fetal heartbeat” by the anti-abortion movement, though a six-week-old fetus hasn’t yet formed a heart, and the electrical pulses are coming from cell clusters that can be replicated in a petri dish. At six weeks, in fact, medical associations still call the fetus an embryo; as I found out in 2020, you generally can’t even schedule a doctor’s visit to confirm your condition until you’re eight weeks along.

So many things that now shape the cultural experience of pregnancy in America accept and reinforce the terms of the anti-abortion movement, often with the implicit goal of making pregnant women feel special, or encouraging them to buy things. “Your baby,” every app and article whispered to me sweetly, wrongly, many months before I intuited personhood in the being inside me, or felt that the life I was forming had moved out of a liminal realm.

I tried to learn from that liminality. Hope was always predicated on uncertainty; there would be no guarantees of safety in this or any other part of life. Pregnancy did not feel like soft blankets and stuffed bunnies—it felt cosmic and elemental, like volcanic rocks grinding, or a wild plant straining toward the sun. It was violent even as I loved it. “Even with the help of modern medicine, pregnancy still kills about 800 women every day worldwide,” the evolutionary biologist Suzanne Sadedin points out in an essay titled “War in the womb.” Many of the genes that activate during embryonic development also activate when a body has been invaded by cancer, Sadedin notes; in ectopic pregnancies, which are unviable by definition and make up one to two per cent of all pregnancies, embryos become implanted in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus, and “tunnel ferociously toward the richest nutrient source they can find.” The result, Sadedin writes, “is often a bloodbath.”

The Book of Genesis tells us that the pain of childbearing is part of the punishment women have inherited from Eve. The other part is subjugation to men: “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you,” God tells Eve. Tertullian, a second-century theologian, told women, “You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of the (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.” The idea that guilt inheres in female identity persists in anti-abortion logic: anything a woman, or a girl, does with her body can justify the punishment of undesired pregnancy, including simply existing.

If I had become pregnant when I was a thirteen-year-old Texan , I would have believed that abortion was wrong, but I am sure that I would have got an abortion. For one thing, my Christian school did not allow students to be pregnant. I was aware of this, and had, even then, a faint sense that the people around me grasped, in some way, the necessity of abortion—that, even if they believed that abortion meant taking a life, they understood that it could preserve a life, too.

One need not reject the idea that life in the womb exists or that fetal life has meaning in order to favor the right to abortion; one must simply allow that everything, not just abortion, has a moral dimension, and that each pregnancy occurs in such an intricate web of systemic and individual circumstances that only the person who is pregnant could hope to evaluate the situation and make a moral decision among the options at hand. A recent survey found that one-third of Americans believe life begins at conception but also that abortion should be legal. This is the position overwhelmingly held by American Buddhists, whose religious tradition casts abortion as the taking of a human life and regards all forms of life as sacred but also warns adherents against absolutism and urges them to consider the complexity of decreasing suffering, compelling them toward compassion and respect.

There is a Buddhist ritual practiced primarily in Japan, where it is called mizuko kuyo : a ceremony of mourning for miscarriages, stillbirths, and aborted fetuses. The ritual is possibly ersatz; critics say that it fosters and preys upon women’s feelings of guilt. But the scholar William LaFleur argues, in his book “ Liquid Life ,” that it is rooted in a medieval Japanese understanding of the way the unseen world interfaces with the world of humans—in which being born and dying are both “processes rather than fixed points.” An infant was believed to have entered the human world from the realm of the gods, and move clockwise around a wheel as she grew older, eventually passing back into the spirit realm on the other side. But some infants were mizuko , or water babies: floating in fluids, ontologically unstable. These were the babies who were never born. A mizuko , whether miscarried or aborted—and the two words were similar: kaeru , to go back, and kaesu , to cause to go back—slipped back, counterclockwise, across the border to the realm of the gods.

There is a loss, I think, entailed in abortion—as there is in miscarriage, whether it occurs at eight or twelve or twenty-nine weeks. I locate this loss in the irreducible complexity of life itself, in the terrible violence and magnificence of reproduction, in the death that shimmered at the edges of my consciousness in the shattering moment that my daughter was born. This understanding might be rooted in my religious upbringing—I am sure that it is. But I wonder, now, how I would square this: that fetuses were the most precious lives in existence, and that God, in His vision, already chooses to end a quarter of them. The fact that a quarter of women, regardless of their beliefs, also decide to end pregnancies at some point in their lifetimes: are they not acting in accordance with God’s plan for them, too? ♦

More on Abortion and Roe v. Wade

In the post-Roe era, letting pregnant patients get sicker— by design .

The study that debunks most anti-abortion arguments .

Of course the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion .

How the real Jane Roe shaped the abortion wars.

Black feminists defined abortion rights as a matter of equality, not just “choice.”

Recent data suggest that taking abortion pills at home is as safe as going to a clinic. 

When abortion is criminalized, women make desperate choices .

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By Dhruv Khullar

By Brendan Loper

By Christopher Weyant

By Allison Keeley

A Brief History of Abortion in the U.S.

Abortion wasn’t always a moral, political, and legal tinderbox. What changed?

A bortion laws have never been more contentious in the U.S. Yet for the first century of the country’s existence—and most of human history before that—abortion was a relatively uncontroversial fact of life.

“Abortion has existed for pretty much as long as human beings have existed,” says Joanne Rosen, JD, MA , a senior lecturer in Health Policy and Management who studies the impact of law and policy on access to abortion.

Until the mid-19th century, the U.S. attitude toward abortion was much the same as it had often been elsewhere throughout history: It was a quiet reality, legal until “quickening” (when fetal motion could be felt by the mother). In the eyes of the law, the fetus wasn’t a “separate distinct entity until then,” but rather an extension of the mother, Rosen explains.

What changed?

America’s first anti-abortion movement wasn’t driven primarily by moral or religious concerns like it is today. Instead, abortion’s first major foe in the U.S. was physicians on a mission to regulate medicine.

Until this point, abortion services had been “women’s work.” Most providers were midwives, many of whom made a good living selling abortifacient plants. They relied on methods passed down through generations, from herbal abortifacients and pessaries—a tampon-like device soaked in a solution to induce abortion—to catheter abortions that irritate the womb and force a miscarriage, to a minor surgical procedure called dilation and curettage (D&C), which remains one of the most common methods of terminating an early pregnancy.

The cottage abortion industry caught the attention of the fledgling American Medical Association, which was established in 1847 and, at the time, excluded women and Black people from membership. The AMA was keen to be taken seriously as a gatekeeper of the medical profession, and abortion services made midwives and other irregular practitioners—so-called quacks—an easy target. Their rhetoric was strategic, says Mary Fissell, PhD , the J. Mario Molina professor in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. “You have to link those midwives to providing abortion as a way of kind of getting them out of business,” Fissell says. “So organized medicine very much takes the anti-abortion position and stays with that for some time.”

Early 19th century and before

Abortion is legal in the U.S. until “quickening”

AMA campaigns to end abortion

At least 40 anti-abortion statutes are enacted in the U.S.

Comstock Act makes it illegal to sell or mail contraceptives or abortifacients

Late 19th century

OB-GYN emerges as a specialty

Griswold v. Connecticut decision finds that the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy, specifically in prescribing contraceptives, paving the way for Roe v. Wade

Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade enshrines abortion as a constitutional right

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey protects a woman's right to have an abortion prior to  fetal viability

Four states pass trigger laws making it a felony to perform, procure, or prescribe an abortion if Roe is ever overturned

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey overturned; 13 states ban abortion by October 2022

In 1857, the AMA took aim at unregulated abortion providers with a letter-writing campaign pushing state lawmakers to ban the practice. To make their case, they asserted that there was a medical consensus that life begins at conception, rather than at quickening.

The campaign succeeded. At least 40 anti-abortion laws went on the books between 1860 and 1880.

And yet some doctors continued to perform abortions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By then, abortion was illegal in almost all states and territories, but during the Depression era, “doctors could see why women wouldn’t want a child,” and many would perform them anyway, Fissell says. In the 1920s and through the 1930s, many cities had physicians who specialized in abortions, and other doctors would refer patients to them “off book.”

That leniency faded with the end of World War II. “All across America, it’s very much about gender roles, and women are supposed to be in the home, having babies,” Fissell says. This shift in the 1940s and ’50s meant that more doctors were prosecuted for performing abortions, which drove the practice underground and into less skilled hands. In the 1950s and 1960s, up to 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed each year in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute . In 1965, 17% of reported deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth were associated with illegal abortion.

A rubella outbreak from 1963–1965 moved the dial again, back toward more liberal abortion laws. Catching rubella during pregnancy could cause severe birth defects, leading medical authorities to endorse therapeutic abortions . But these safe, legal abortions remained largely the preserve of the privileged. “Women who are well-to-do have always managed to get abortions, almost always without a penalty,” says Fissell. “But God help her if she was a single, Black, working-class woman.”

Women who could afford it brought their cases to court to fight for access to hospital abortions. Other women gained approval for abortions with proof from a physician that carrying the pregnancy would endanger her life or her physical or mental health. These cases set off a wave of abortion reform bills in state legislatures that helped set the stage for Roe v. Wade . By the time Roe was decided in 1973, legal abortions were already available in 17 states—and not just to save a woman’s life.

But raising the issue to the level of the Supreme Court and enshrining abortion rights for all Americans also galvanized opposition to it and mobilized anti-abortion groups. “ Roe was under attack virtually from the moment it was decided,” says Rosen.  

In 1992 another Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey posed the most significant existential threat to Roe . Rosen calls it “the case that launched a thousand abortion regulations,” upholding Roe but giving states far greater scope to regulate abortion prior to fetal viability. However, defining that nebulous milestone a became a flashpoint for debate as medical advancements saw babies survive earlier and earlier outside the womb. Sonograms became routine around the same time, making fetal life easier to grasp and “putting wind in the sails of the ‘pro-life’ movement,” Rosen says. Then in June, the Supreme Court overturned both Roe and Casey .

For many Americans, that meant the return to the conundrum that led Norma McCorvey—a.k.a. Jane Roe—to the Supreme Court in 1971: being poor and pregnant, and seeking an abortion in a state that had banned them in all but the narrowest of circumstances.

The history of abortion in the U.S. suggests the tides will turn again. “We often see periods of toleration followed by periods of repression,” says Fissell. The current moment is unequivocally marked by the latter. What remains to be seen is how long it will last.

From Public Health On Call Podcast

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.

Key Facts on Abortion in the United States

Usha Ranji , Karen Diep , and Alina Salganicoff Published: Nov 21, 2023

Note: This brief was updated on January 4, 2024 to correct the description of the data collected by the federal CDC Abortion Surveillance System. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the constitutional right to abortion as well as the federal standards of abortion access, established by prior decisions in the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey . Prior to the Dobbs ruling, the federal standard was that abortions were permitted up to fetal viability. That federal standard has been eliminated, allowing states to set policies regarding the legality of abortions and establish limits. Access to and availability of abortions varies widely between states , with some states banning almost all abortions and some states protecting abortion access.

This issue brief answers some key questions about abortion in the United States and presents data collected before and new data that was published shortly after the overturn of Roe v. Wade .

What is abortion?

How safe are abortions, how often do abortions occur, who gets abortions, at what point in pregnancy do abortions occur, where do people get abortion care, how much do abortions cost, does private insurance or medicaid cover abortions, what are public opinions about abortion.

Abortion is the medical termination of a pregnancy. It is a common medical service that many women obtain at some point in their life. There are different types of abortion methods, which the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM ) places in four categories:

• Medication Abortion – Medication abortion, also known as medical abortion or abortion with pills, is a pregnancy termination protocol that involves taking oral medications. There are two widely accepted protocols for medication abortion. In the U.S., the most common protocol involves taking two different drugs, Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Typically, an individual using medication abortion takes Mifepristone first, followed by misoprostol 24-48 hours later. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved this protocol of medication abortion for use up to the first 70 days (10 weeks) of pregnancy, and its use has been rising for years. Another medication abortion protocol uses misoprostol alone . Patients can take 800 µg (4 pills) of misoprostol sublingually or vaginally every three hours for a total of 12 pills. The regimen is also recommended for up to 70 days (10 weeks) of pregnancy, but it is not currently approved by the FDA and is more commonly used in other countries.

Guttmacher Institute estimates that in 2020, medication was used for more than half (53%) of all abortions. While medication abortion has been available in the U.S. for more than 20 years, studies have found that many adults and women of reproductive age have not heard of medication abortion. Many have confused emergency contraception ( EC ) pills with medication abortion pills, but EC does not terminate a pregnancy. EC works by delaying or inhibiting ovulation and will not affect an established pregnancy.

• Aspiration , a minimally invasive and commonly used gynecological procedure, is the most common form of procedural abortion. It can be used to conduct abortions up to 14-16 weeks of gestation. Aspiration is also commonly used in cases of early pregnancy loss (miscarriage).
• Dilation and evacuation abortions (D&E) are usually performed after the 14th week of pregnancy. The cervix is dilated, and the pregnancy tissue is evacuated using forceps or suction.
• Induction abortions are rare and conducted later in pregnancy. They involve the use of medications to induce labor and delivery of the fetus.

( Back to top )

Decades of research have shown that abortion is a very safe medical service.

Despite its strong safety profile, abortion is the most highly regulated medical service in the country and is now banned in several states. In addition to bans on abortion altogether and telehealth, many states impose other limitations on abortion that are not medically indicated, including waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, gestational age limits, and parental notification and consent requirements. These restrictions typically delay receipt of services.

• NASEM completed an exhaustive review on the safety and effectiveness of abortion care and concluded that complications from abortion are rare and occur far less frequently than during childbirth.
• NASEM also concluded that safety is enhanced when the abortion is performed earlier in the pregnancy. State level restrictions such as waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, and gestational limits that impede access and delay abortion provision likely make abortions less safe.
• When medication abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions, are administered at 9 weeks’ gestation or less, the pregnancy is terminated successfully 99.6% of the time, with a 0.4% risk of major complications, and an associated mortality rate of less than 0.001 percent (0.00064%).
• Medication abortion pills can be provided in a clinical setting or via telehealth (without an in-person visit). Research has found that the provision of medication abortion via telehealth is as safe and effective as the provision of the pills at an in person visit.
• Studies on procedural abortions, which include aspiration and D&E, have also found that they are very safe. Research on aspiration abortions, the most common procedural method, have found the rate of major complications of less than 1%.

There are three major data sources on abortion incidence and the characteristics of people who obtain abortions in the U.S: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Guttmacher Institute, and most recently, the Society of Family Planning’s (SFP) #WeCount project.

The federal CDC Abortion Surveillance System requests data from the central health agencies of the 50 states, DC, and New York City to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining abortions. Most states collect data from facilities where abortions are provided on the demographic characteristics of patients, gestational age, and type of abortion procedure. Reporting these data to the CDC is voluntary and not all states participate in the surveillance system. Notably, California, Maryland, and New Hampshire have not reported data on abortions to the CDC system for years. CDC publishes available data from the surveillance system annually.

Guttmacher Institute , an independent research and advocacy organization, is another major source of data on abortions in the U.S. Prior to the Dobbs ruling, Guttmacher conducted the Abortion Provider Census (APC) periodically which has provided data on abortion incidence, abortion facilities, and characteristics of abortion patients. Data from this Census are based primarily on questionnaires collected from all known facilities that provide abortion in the country, information obtained from state health departments, and Guttmacher estimates for a small portion of facilities. The most recent APC reports data from 2020.

The CDC and Guttmacher data differ in terms of methods, timeframe, and completeness, but both have shown similar trends in abortion rates over the past decade. One notable difference is that Guttmacher’s study includes continuous reporting from California, D.C., Maryland, and New Hampshire, which explains at least in part the higher number of abortions in their data.

Since the Dobbs ruling, the Guttmacher Institute has established the Monthly Abortion Provision Study to track abortion volume within the formal United States health care system. This ongoing effort collects data on and provides national and state-level estimates on procedural and medication abortions while also tracking the changes in abortion volume since 2020. The Monthly Abortion Provision Study was designed to complement Guttmacher’s APC along with other data collection efforts to allow for quick snapshots of the changing abortion landscape in the United States.

Society of Family Planning’s (SFP) #WeCount is another national reporting effort that measures changes in abortion access following the Dobbs ruling. The project reports on the number of abortions per month by state and includes data on abortions provided through clinics, private practices, hospitals, and virtual-only providers. The report does not include data on self-managed abortions that are performed without clinical supervision. The most recent #WeCount report analyzes data from April 2022 to data from June 2023, marking one full year of abortion data since Dobbs. The effort represents 83% of all providers known to #WeCount who agreed to participate in their research.

This KFF issue brief uses data from the CDC, Guttmacher, and SFP as well as other research organizations.

How has the abortion rate changed over time?

For most of the decade prior to the Dobbs ruling, there was a steady decline in abortion rates nationally, but there was a slight increase in the years just before the ruling.

In their most recent national data, Guttmacher Institute reported 930,160 abortions in 2020 and a rate of 14.4 per 1,000 women. CDC reported 622,108 abortions in 2021 and a rate of 11.6 abortions per 1,000 women (excludes CA, DC, MD, NH). Guttmacher’s study showed an upward trend in abortion from 2017 to 2020 whereas CDC’s report showed an increase in abortions from 2017 to 2021 except for a slight decrease in 2020.

While most attribute the long-term decline in abortion rates to increased use of more effective methods of contraception , several states had reduced access to low- or no-cost contraceptive care as a result of reductions in the Title X network under the Trump Administration, which may have contributed to the slight rise in abortions prior to the Dobbs ruling. Other factors that may have contributed to the increase could include greater coverage under Medicaid that subsequently made abortions more affordable in some states and broader financial support from abortion funds to help individuals pay for the costs of abortion care.

Even prior to the Dobbs ruling, abortion rates varied widely between states.

National averages can mask local and more granular differences. Lower state-level abortion rates do not reflect less need. Some of the variation has been due to the wide differences in state policies, with some states historically placing restrictions on abortion that make access and availability to nearly out of reach and, on the other side, some states enshrining protections in state Constitutions and legislation.

• In 2020, the abortion rate (per 1,000 women ages 15-44) ranged from 0.1 in Missouri to 48.9 in the District of Columbia (DC). Trends also varied between states. While the national rate of abortion increased between 2017 and 2019, some states saw declines, with particularly sharp drops in states where heavy restrictions were put into place.

While the number of abortions in the U.S. dropped immediately following the Dobbs decision, new data show that the number of abortions increased overall one year following the ruling. However, the upswing obscures the declines in abortion care in states with bans.

SFP’s #WeCount estimates there were 2,200 cumulative more abortions in the year following Dobbs (July 2022 to June 2023) compared to the pre- Dobbs period (April 2022 and May 2022). Nationally, the number of abortions varied month-by-month, with the largest decrease observed in November 2022 (73,930 abortions; 8,185 fewer abortions than pre- Dobbs period ) and the largest increase in March 2023 (92,680 abortions; 10,565 more abortions than pre- Dobbs period). The states with the largest cumulative increases in the total number of abortions provided by a clinician during the 12-month period include Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, California, and New Mexico. States with abortion bans experienced the largest cumulative decreases in the number of abortions, including Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana (data varies by month in each state; data not shown).

States without abortion bans experienced an increase of abortions following the Dobbs ruling likely due to a combination of reasons: increased interstate travel for abortion access, expanded in-person and virtual/telehealth capacity to see patients, increased measures to protect and cover abortion care for residents and out-of-state patients, and potentially reduced abortion-related stigma as a result of community mobilization around abortion care.

However, the overall national increase in the number of abortions masks the absence and/or scarcity of abortion care in states with total abortion bans or severe restrictions. States with total bans experienced observed 94,930 fewer clinician-provided abortions a year following the ruling (data not shown). Note, this figure is an underestimate due several state policies that restricted abortion access during the pre- Dobbs period. These estimates do not include abortions that may have been performed through self-managed means.

Most of the information about people who receive abortions comes from data prior to the Dobbs ruling. In 2021, women across a range of age groups, socioeconomic status, and racial and ethnic backgrounds obtained abortions, but the majority were obtained by women who were in their twenties, low-income, and women of color.

• Women in their twenties accounted for more than half (57%) of abortions. Nearly one-third (31%) were among women in their thirties and a small share were among women in their 40s (4%) and teens (8%).
• Seven in ten abortion patients were of women of color. Black women comprised 42% of abortion recipients, White women 30% , Hispanic women 22%, and 7% women of other races/ethnicities.
• Many women who sought abortions have children. More than six in 10 (61%) abortion patients in 2021 had at least one previous birth.

The vast majority (94%) of abortions occur during the first trimester of pregnancy according to data available from before the Dobbs decision.

Before the 2022 ruling in Dobbs, there was a federal constitutional right to abortion before the pregnancy is considered to be viable, that is, can survive outside of a pregnant person’s uterus. Viability is generally considered around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Most abortions, though, occur well before the point of fetal viability.

• Data from 2021 found that more than four in ten (45%) abortions occurred by six weeks of gestation, a third (36%) occurred between seven and nine weeks, and 13% at 10-13 weeks. Just 7% of abortions occurred after the first trimester.
• Prior to the decision in the Dobbs case, almost half of states (22) had enacted laws that ban abortion at a certain gestational age. Most of these limits are in the second trimester, but some are in the first trimester, well before fetal viability. Many of these laws were blocked because they violated the federal standard established by Roe v Wade. Some states have enacted laws banning abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, or around 6 weeks of pregnancy, which is often before a person knows they are pregnant. In addition to banning abortion, states can now establish pre-viability gestational restrictions because the federal standard has been overturned.

Just over half of abortions were provided at clinics that specialize in abortion care in 2020. Others were provided at clinics that offer abortion care in addition to other family planning services.

Guttmacher Institute estimated that 96% of abortions were provided at clinics and just 4% were provided in doctors’ offices or hospitals in 2020. Most clinic-based abortions were provided at clinics that specialize in providing abortion care, but many were provided at clinics that offer a wide range of other sexual and reproductive health services like contraception and STI care. Most abortions are provided by physicians. However, in 19 states and D.C., Advanced Practice Clinicians (APCs) such as Nurse Practitioners and midwives may provide medication abortions. Conversely, 31 states prohibit clinicians other than physicians from providing abortion care.

Even prior to the ruling in Dobbs , access to abortion services was very uneven across the country though. The proliferation of restrictions in many states, particularly in the South, had greatly shrunk the availability of services in some areas. In the wake of overturning Roe v. Wade , these geographic disparities are likely to widen as more states ban abortion services altogether.

Telehealth has grown as a delivery mechanism for abortion services.

While procedural abortions must be provided in a clinical setting, medication abortion can be provided in a clinical setting or via telehealth. Access to medication abortion via telehealth had been limited for many years by a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restriction that had permitted only certified clinicians to dispense mifepristone in a health care setting. The drug could not be mailed or picked up at a retail pharmacy. However, in December 2021, the FDA permanently revised its policy and no longer requires clinicians to dispense the drug in person. Additionally, in January 2023, the FDA finalized a change that allows retail pharmacies to dispense medication abortion pills to patients with a prescription.

While some states are regulating the use of mifepristone as an abortion method, the Biden Administration has asserted that the FDA has regulatory power over all drugs, including mifepristone. This could result in future legal action as the authority of the state to regulate health care will be pitted against the authority of the federal government to regulate drugs through the FDA will be contested.

• In a telehealth abortion, the patient typically completes an online questionnaire to assess (1) confirmation of pregnancy, (2) gestational age and (3) blood type. If determined eligible by a remote clinician, the patient is mailed the medications. This model does not require an ultrasound for pregnancy dating if the patient has regular periods and is sure of the date of their last menstrual period (in line with  ACOG ’s guidelines for pregnancy dating). If the patient has irregular periods or is unsure how long they have been pregnant, they must obtain an ultrasound to confirm gestational age and rule out an ectopic pregnancy 3 and send in the images for review before receiving their medications. If the patient does not know their blood type or has Rh negative blood, the  provider  may prompt the patient to visit a nearby clinic for an injection to prevent adverse reactions between maternal and fetal blood ( RhoGAM ), The follow-up visit with a clinician can also happen via a telehealth visit.
• However, even in some of the states that have not banned abortion altogether, telehealth may not be available. Many states had established restrictions prior to the Dobbs ruling that limit the use of telehealth abortions by either requiring abortion patients to take the pills at a physical clinic, require ultrasounds for all abortions, set their own policies regarding the dispensing of the medications used for abortion care, or directly ban the use of telehealth for abortion care. As of November 2022, of the 33 states that have not banned abortion, eight had at least one of these restrictions, effectively prohibiting telehealth for medication abortion.
• Medication abortion has emerged as a major legal front in the battle over abortion access across the nation. Multiple cases have been filed in federal courts regarding aspects of the FDA’s regulation of medication abortion as well as the mailing of medications. One notable ongoing case is Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA , where the plaintiffs are challenging the FDA’s authority and approval process for mifepristone. The plaintiffs also contend that an 1873 anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, prohibits the mailing of any medication used for abortion. In April 2023, a US Supreme Court ruling allowed current FDA rules to remain in effect as the case proceeds through the courts. This means that mifepristone remains available for medication abortion either in a clinic or via telehealth where state law permits.

Data from SFP’s October 2023 #WeCount report show that abortions provided by virtual-only clinics represent approximately 5% of all abortions post- Roe . The number of telehealth abortions increased 72% from a monthly average of 4,045 abortions in April and May 2022 to 6,950 abortions per month in the 12 months post- Dobbs . Nearly all of these abortions occurred in states that permit abortions.

Self-managed abortions are provided without a clinician visit.

Self-managed abortions typically involve obtaining medication abortion pills from an online pharmacy that will send the pills by mail or by purchasing the pills from a pharmacy in another country. This does not typically involve a direct consultation with a clinician either in person or via telehealth.

Research has found that prior to Dobbs , more than one in ten patients who obtained abortions at clinics had considered self-managing their abortions. This is likely to increase going forward since abortion care is not available in many states, and there have already been reports of people ordering pills from online markets outside the U.S. medical system. Tracking information on these online orders can help fill in gaps in abortion count estimates but can also be difficult. Some companies may not share data on purchases, and it would also be unclear whether patients take the abortion medication after receiving it in the mail.

The median costs of abortion services exceed $500.

Obtaining an abortion can be costly. On average, the costs are higher for abortions in the second trimester than in the first trimester. State restrictions can also raise the costs, as people may have to travel if abortions are prohibited or not available in their area. Many people pay for abortion services out of pocket, but some people can obtain assistance from local abortion funds.

• In 2021, the median costs for people paying out of pocket in the first trimester were $568 for a medication abortion and $625 for a procedural abortion. The Federal Reserve estimates that nationally about one-third of people do not have $400 on hand for unexpected expenses. For low-income people, who are more likely to need abortion care, these costs are often unaffordable.
• The costs of abortion are higher in the second trimester compared to the first, with median self-pay of $775. In the second trimester, more intensive procedures may be needed, more are likely to be conducted in a hospital setting (although still a minority), and local options are more limited in many communities that have fewer facilities. This results in additional nonmedical costs for transportation, childcare, lodging, and lost wages. nonmedical costs for transportation, childcare, lodging, and lost wages.
• Abortion funds are independent organizations that help some people pay for the costs of abortion services. Most abortion funds are regional and have connections to clinics in their area. Funds vary, but they typically provide assistance with the costs of medical care, travel, and accommodations if needed. However, they do not reach all people seeking services, and many people are not able to afford the costs of obtaining an abortion because they cannot pay for the abortion itself or cover the costs of travel, lodging or missed work.

Insurance coverage for abortion services is heavily restricted in certain private insurance plans and public programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

Private insurance covers most women of reproductive age, and states have the responsibility to regulate fully insured private plans in their state, whereas the federal government regulates self-funded plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). States can choose whether abortion coverage is included or excluded in private plans that are not self-insured.

• Prior to the Dobbs ruling, several states had enacted private plan restrictions and banned abortion coverage from ACA Marketplace plans. Currently, there are 11 states that have policies restricting abortion coverage in private plans and 26 that ban coverage in any Marketplace plans. Since the Dobbs ruling, some of these states have also banned the provision of abortion services altogether.
• A handful of states ( 9 ), however, have enacted laws that require private plans to cover abortion.
• The Medicaid program covers approximately one in five women of reproductive age and four in ten who are low-income. For decades, the Hyde Amendment has banned the use of federal funds for abortion in Medicaid and other public programs unless the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest, or it endangers the woman’s life.
• States have the option to use state-only funds to cover abortions under other circumstances for women on Medicaid, which 16 states do currently. However, more than half (56% ) of women covered by Medicaid live in Hyde states.
• According to a Guttmacher Institute survey of patients in the year prior to the Dobbs ruling, a quarter (26%) of abortion patients in the study used Medicaid to pay for abortion services, 11% used private insurance, and 60% paid out of pocket. People in states with more restrictive abortion policies were less likely to use Medicaid or private insurance and more likely to pay out of pocket compared to people living in less restrictive states.
• Federal law also restricts abortion funding under the Indian Health Service, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Over the years, language similar to that in the Hyde Amendment has been incorporated into a range of other federal programs that provide or pay for health services to women including: the military’s TRICARE program, federal prisons, the Peace Corps, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

National polls have consistently found that a majority of the public did not want to see Roe v . Wade overturned and that most people feel that abortion is a personal medical decision. The public also strongly opposes the criminalization of abortion both among people who get abortion and the clinicians who provide abortion services. Nearly three quarters of adults (74%) and 79% of reproductive age women say that obtaining an abortion should be a personal choice rather than regulated by law (data not shown). For example, two-thirds of the public are concerned that bans on abortion may lead to unnecessary health problems for people experiencing pregnancy complications.

Additional KFF resources:

Abortion in the US Dashboard

Access and Coverage of Abortion Services

Issue Brief: Abortion at SCOTUS: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

Issue Brief: State Actions to Protect and Expand Access to Abortion Services

Policy Watch: A Year After Dobbs: Policies Restricting Access to Abortion in States Even Where It’s Not Banned

Policy Watch: Employer Coverage of Travel Costs for Out-of-State Abortion

Issue Brief: Exclusion of Abortion Coverage from Employer-Sponsored Health Plans

Interactive: How State Policies Shape Access to Abortion Coverage

Medication Abortion

Issue Brief: Legal Challenges to the FDA Approval of Medication Abortion Pills

Infographic: The Availability and Use of Medication Abortion Care

Fact Sheet: The Availability and Use of Medication Abortion

Issue Brief: The Intersection of State and Federal Policies on Access to Medication Abortion Via Telehealth

Public Opinion on Abortion

Web Event: Americans’ Knowledge and Attitudes About Abortion Access and The Pending Supreme Court Ruling

KFF Health Tracking Poll: Early 2023 Update On Public Awareness On Abortion and Emergency Contraception

KFF Health Tracking Poll: Views on and Knowledge about Abortion in Wake of Leaked Supreme Court Opinion

Other Resources on Women’s Health

Interactive: State Profiles for Women’s Health

Interactive: State Health Facts on Women’s Health Indicators

Homepage: Women’s Health Policy

• Women's Health Policy
• Access to Care

Also of Interest

• The Availability and Use of Medication Abortion
• State Actions to Protect and Expand Access to Abortion Services
• Legal Challenges to State Abortion Bans Since the Dobbs Decision
• Legal Challenges to the FDA Approval of Medication Abortion Pills
• Employer Coverage of Travel Costs for Out-of-State Abortion
• Abortion in the United States Dashboard

Abortion - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Abortion is a highly contentious issue with significant moral, legal, and social implications. Essays on abortion could explore the various aspects of the debate including the ethical dimensions, the legal frameworks governing abortion, and the social attitudes surrounding it. They might delve into historical changes in public opinion, the different arguments presented by pro-life and pro-choice advocates, and the impact of legal rulings on the accessibility and safety of abortion services. Discussions could also explore the intersection of abortion with issues like gender equality, religious freedom, and medical ethics. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Abortion you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Issue of Sex-Selective Abortion

Sex-selective abortion is the practice of ending a pregnancy due to the predicted gender of the baby. It has been occurring for centeriues in many countries many people believe that males are more valuable than females. This practice has been happening in many Asian countries but even in the US many Asians still hold strong to those beliefs. Due to these beleifs there is a huge shift in sex ratio in Asian countries. People are using the technology to determine […]

Abortion and Women’s Rights

In spite of women's activist desires, the matter of conceptive decision in the United States was not settled in 1973 by the important Supreme Court choice on account of Roe v. Wade. From the beginning there was animal-like restriction by the Catholic Church. Anyway, in the course of at least the last 20 years, the too early or soon birth discussion has changed into a definitely spellbound, meaningful debate between two differentiating societal talks that are moored to the problems […]

Women’s Rights in the United States in the 1970s

In the 1940’s-1960’s, there was a blurred distinction between clinical and sexual exams within the medical field (Wendy Kline, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry). For example, many male doctors would provide pelvic exams as a means to teach women sex instruction, and were taught to assert their power over their patients. This led to women instituting new training programs for proper examinations, creating a more gentle and greatly-respected method of examining women and their bodies. There was also an increase […]

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Abortion: a Woman’s Choice

Women have long been criticized in every aspect of their lives. They have even little to no choice about how to live their lives. Much like, abortion, which is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. It has been one of the most sensitive topics, society sees it as a murderous act. On, January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled on making the availability of abortion […]

Abortion: the most Debated Topic

There is no question that abortion is one of the most debated topics of the last 50 years. Women all over the United States tend to feel passionately over one side or the other, either pro-choice or anti-abortion. Not one to shy away from controversial subjects, I chose this topic to shed light on both sides of the ethical and moral decision of this important issue surrounding a termination of pregnancy. There is no question the gravity of this decision, […]

Women’s Rights to Choose

Every person in the United States is granted inalienable rights, whether it be to practice their own religion or vote, which should include autonomy over their own bodies.  A woman should have the right to choose what she does with her own body, and in 1973 that became a possibility for American women.  In 1973 Roe v. Wade made it possible for women to legally choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies within their first two trimesters.  The government finally took into […]

Don Marquis’s View on Abortion

Don Marquis begins his argument of abortion being immoral by mentioning the pro-choice premise, which was that the statement of a fetus is never a person being too narrow. It's too narrow because if the fetus is never a person, then what would be the difference of a 9-month-old fetus and a newborn baby? That would just mean that infanticide isn't considered murder because a 9-month-old fetus and newborn weren't ever considered to be a person. Marquis further mentions that […]

Effects of Abortion on Young Women

Abortion is defined as the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. It is a controversial conversation that most people avoid having.  Abortion is different than most issues in politics, because it directly impacts women, rather than men. Young women being targeted over the last forty-five years, has changed the way the public views abortion and what it does to women. A rise in physical complications, mental health problems, and the modern wave of feminism are the effects of legalized abortion […]

The Murder of Innocence

Abortion is a new generation's way of shrugging off accountability of their action at the cost of human life agreeing to the first revision to the structure that says we have the proper way to give of discourse. Me personally for one beyond any doubt that most of us would agree to the reality that ready to say and do what we need and select. For it is our choice to control of speech our conclusions. In connection, moms at […]

The History of Abortion

The history of abortion' is more complex than most people realize. There has been a lot of debate in the past few years about abortion being murder/not murder. Abortion has become illegal in most states. There are several women who believe in "pro-choice" which means they want to have a choice taking care of the baby. I, personally, believe abortion is murder. You are killing a fetus that is going to be born within months and they don't have a […]

Abortion: Go or no Go

Premature birth ends a pregnancy by killing an actual existence yet the mother isn't accused of homicide. Is this right? Shockingly, this has happened roughly twenty million times in the previous twenty years. Tragically, in South Africa, an unborn human has been slaughtered lawfully because of the nation's insufficient laws! The enemy of a honest unprotected human is a killer, accordingly, the individual merits the discipline proportional to a killer by law. Premature birth on interest just gives a mother […]

Abotion: Right or Wrong

When does a person learn right from wrong?  Is someone that knows right from wrong, different from someone who does not? These questions bring up the topic of the difference between a "Human" and a "Person". A human would be of human genetics and have a certain build. On the other hand, a human can also not be a person at certain points in the stage of life. If you can distinguish right from wrong, and are able to make […]

Let’s Talk about my Abortion Article

Why is something that requires two people, almost always considered the woman's problem? Every answer to this question is different, more aggressive in some cases, but it narrows down to basic human rights. Now you may be asking "What the hell is she talking about?" and I can assure you, we will get to that. I'd like for you to first put yourself in a situation: You're given a puppy, yet you're allergic to dogs and absolutely do not have […]

Debates on Abortion Theme

Abortion has proved to be a highly controversial topic in religion, politics, and even ethics. Its debate has caused division between factions with some supporting and others opposing its practice. This issue has also landed in the realm of philosophy where several ethicists have tried to explain why they think the method should either be supported or opposed. This essay looks at the works of Judith Thomson and Don Marquis as a representation of both sides of arguments (advocates and […]

Abortion on Teens should be Abolished

Am sure we have all heard of the girl meets boy story, where the girl falls in love with the boy despite receiving plenty of warnings and criticism from any person who has ever mattered in the girl's life. Everything is merry and life is good for the girl until one day she realizes she has missed her period and rushes to her man's home telling herself that everything will be okay. Reality checks in, hard, when the boy declines […]

The Mother and Abortion

For Gwendolyn Brooks, writing poetry that would be considered out of the ordinary and frowned upon was a common theme for her. Her widespread knowledge on subjects like race, ethnicity, gender, and even abortion placed this African American poet apart from many others. Like many poets, Brooks based many of her works on her own life experiences. Although it's unclear whether or not Brooks had an abortion herself, she creates hints and provokes strong feelings towards the issue, revealing the […]

An Issue of Women’s Reproductive Rights

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that men and women are created equal (Elizabeth Cady Stanton). In America this has been the basis of what our nation stands for. It is stated that every citizen has the right to equality that shall not be stripped away, in many cases that is not true. Whether man or women you should possess the same rights, but more often than not the women's rights are taken away. There are many instances in […]

What is Abortion

Every year, approximately 40-50 million abortions are conducted. That's about 125,000 little human beings being vacuumed, sucked out, and dissolved, everyday. That's 1 baby being aborted every 26 seconds. As of 58% of Americans think abortion should be legal.. Only 37% thinks it should be illegal in all, Or most cases. Abortion should be eliminated because it is murder, gives women mental health issues, and can cause high risks in the mother's future baby's health. There are two different types […]

The Complex Debate: Exploring Abortion Laws and their Implications

There has been a disputed discussion in history among religious, political, ethical, moral and practical grounds when it comes to the case about abortion. Abortion law forbids, allows, limits and governs the availability of abortion. Abortion laws alter to a high degree by country. For example, three countries in Latin America and two others in Europe ban the act of abortion altogether. In other countries like the United Kingdom contains the abortion act of 1967 that clarifies and prescribes abortion […]

My Beliefs on Abortion

Society today condones the killing of a life, they call it abortion, but I will try to show you why this is wrong.  Life begins at conception.  The Bible provides proof that God knew us before we were even formed.  This provides truth that what is inside a woman's body is a human life. I believe that when you decide to have an abortion, you are deciding to kill an innocent baby.  Whether you're doing it because the baby may […]

Research on Abortion Issues

The raging battle for women's rights can be found in almost every avenue of American culture. Whether it be in the workplace, in the government, in churches, or within families, females are fighting for their freedom to control their own lives. They want to work in whichever field they desire, to love whomever they want, and to make decisions for themselves. One of the biggest cases in the quarrel for feminism is the legalization of abortion. Women argue that it […]

Reasons the Constitution of Texas should be Rewritten

The constitution of Texas was written in 1876 but this constitution is not successful in this modern time. Rules and set of protocols which are written in this constitution are not valid for urban Texas these rules need to be amended. From the time of the adoption of this constitution, a total number of 653 amendments were proposed and out of these 653 a total of 474 amendments were approved by the voters and 179 were rejected. Some ?urrent political […]

Get Rid of Abortion or Not?

The world includes a huge variety of people who share different beliefs and morals, however, the Bible states that no one should judge others. One is supposed to respect another for whom they are as a person. The people in this world are beginning to divide because of the debate concerning if abortion is right, or if it is wrong. People identifying themselves to be pro-choice are in support of abortion because they believe a woman should be allowed to […]

Abortion Issues in Modern World

Premature birth alludes to the end of a pregnancy by evacuating or removing the baby or fetus from the uterus before it is prepared for birth. There are two noteworthy types of premature birth: unconstrained, which is regularly alluded to as an unsuccessful labor or the intentional fetus removal, which is frequently instigated fetus removal. The term fetus removal is normally used to allude to the prompted premature birth, and this is the premature birth, which has been loaded up […]

My Understanding of Abortion

Life has a beginning and an end and every individual knows this, as much as they may not want to know or understand it. An abortion, however, brings a thought to many people within our modern society: Is a baby alive before it is born? There are many ways to look at this but scientist have found out that there is an age of viability, where a baby is considered alive after a certain period of a woman's pregnancy. Before […]

Potential Factors that Influence Abortion

When it comes to women and unplanned pregnancies, there are alternatives other than abortions that a woman can use who and go for who isn't interested in having a child. Adoptions could be one of those alternatives; however, some women can't bear the thought of actually carrying a child. Therefore, they turn to their only option which is the abortion. For women, there are several reasons that may lead to them wanting to have an abortion. According to Stacey (2018), […]

The Status of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights

The consequences of sexual behaviour between women and men have driven a desire and determination of women to control their fertility, yet in an environment in which anti-choice legislators and organizations do not protect women's reproductive rights, there is an ongoing dispute on who decides the fate of such rights. The status of women's sexual and reproductive rights remains controversial and while there have been many attempts to gain such basic human right, the fight for reproductive freedoms remains intense. […]

Abortion and Fathers Rights

In this section I will be focusing on the fathers' situation before and after conception, and bring out arguments how he could effectively avoid becoming a parent in any way (biological, bearer of financial costs, emotional). The father after conception has no alternatives left, unlike the mother has. She is in a position that can terminate the pregnancy by opting for an abortion, or she can carry out (or at least try to) the pregnancy until the end. The father […]

Abstinence only Vs. Abortion Rates

If an individual decides to have premarital sex and becomes pregnant it is likely that they will be shamed by someone no matter what decision they make.  If they decide to keep the baby they will be shamed.  If they decided to put the baby up for adoption they will be shamed.  If they decide to get an abortion they will be shamed.  Although the United States of America was founded on the ideas of freedom of religion and the […]

Why Abortion should be Illegal

Abortion is an issue in today’s society, people that agree or disagree about taking an innocent life away. Even though women now have the legal right to decide what to do with their bodies and to decide whether to end a baby’s life, there are options other than abortions. Each and every life is valuable, and babies should be able to experience a future ahead of them. Abortions should be illegal. Making abortion illegal could allow children to live a […]

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why abortion is legal.

Due to the outcome of a Supreme Court hearing, abortion is completely legal. In 1973, the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe vs Wade provided people legal access to abortion across the entire country. While legal, some doctors will not perform abortions.

How Abortion Affects Economy?

Women who have access to legal abortion will have the ability to continue their education and careers. Women denied an abortion because of gestational limits are more than 80% more likely to experience bankruptcy or face eviction.

Where Abortion is Illegal?

Abortion is legal in the entire country of the US, but some states have restrictions based on gestational status, fetal fatal conditions, and even rape. Other countries around the world have different laws and some have completely outlawed abortion, including Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.

Will Abortion Affect Health?

Women who have an abortion by a medical professional are at no risk for future pregnancies and there are no risks to overall health. Abortions do not increase any risk of breast cancer or have any effect on fertility.

Is Abortion Morally Justifiable?

This will depend on the person and their beliefs. Many women find abortion to be moral and a choice they are allowed to make in regards to their own bodies. Some religions have a strict stance on abortion and deem it immoral, regardless of the reason.

How To Write an Essay About Abortion

Introduction to the topic of abortion.

Abortion is a deeply complex and often controversial topic, encompassing a range of ethical, legal, and social issues. In your essay's introduction, it is important to define abortion and the various viewpoints and ethical considerations surrounding it. This introduction should establish the scope of your essay, whether you are focusing on the moral arguments, the legal aspects, the impact on individuals and society, or a combination of these. Your introduction should set a respectful and scholarly tone, acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic and the diverse opinions held by different groups.

Developing a Balanced Argument

The body of your essay should be dedicated to presenting a balanced and well-reasoned argument. Whether your essay is persuasive, analytical, or exploratory in nature, each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the abortion debate. This could include the ethical implications of abortion, the legal history and current laws regarding abortion in different regions, the psychological and physical effects on individuals, or the societal impacts. It's crucial to back up your points with evidence, such as statistical data, legal texts, ethical theories, medical research, and sociological studies. Addressing counterarguments is also important to show that you have considered multiple viewpoints and to strengthen your own argument.

Exploring Ethical and Societal Implications

An essay on abortion should also delve into the ethical dilemmas and societal implications surrounding the topic. This might involve discussing the moral philosophies related to the right to life, bodily autonomy, and the definition of personhood. The societal perspective might include the impact of abortion laws on different socio-economic groups, public health considerations, and the role of education and family planning. This section of your essay should challenge readers to think critically about their own values and the role of societal norms and laws in shaping the abortion debate.

Concluding the Discussion

In your conclusion, bring together all the threads of your argument, emphasizing the complexity of the abortion debate. This is your final opportunity to reinforce your main points and leave a lasting impression on your readers. Reflect on the broader implications of the debate and the ongoing challenges in finding a consensus in such a polarized issue. You might also offer recommendations for future policy, research, or public discourse. Remember, a strong conclusion doesn't just restate what has been said; it provides closure and offers new insights, prompting readers to continue thinking about the topic long after they have finished reading your essay.

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• Rom J Morphol Embryol
• v.61(1); Jan-Mar 2020

A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes. Case study: Romania

Andreea mihaela niţă.

1 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Craiova, Romania

Cristina Ilie Goga

This article presents a research study on abortion from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The theoretical part is based on the method of social documents analysis, and presents a complex perspective on abortion, highlighting items of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic and legal elements. The empirical part presents the results of a sociological survey, based on the opinion survey method through the application of the enquiry technique, conducted in Romania, on a sample of 1260 women. The purpose of the survey is to identify Romanians perception on the decision to voluntary interrupt pregnancy, and to determine the core reasons in carrying out an abortion.

The analysis of abortion by means of medical and social documents

Abortion means a pregnancy interruption “before the fetus is viable” [ 1 ] or “before the fetus is able to live independently in the extrauterine environment, usually before the 20 th week of pregnancy” [ 2 ]. “Clinical miscarriage is both a common and distressing complication of early pregnancy with many etiological factors like genetic factors, immune factors, infection factors but also psychological factors” [ 3 ]. Induced abortion is a practice found in all countries, but the decision to interrupt the pregnancy involves a multitude of aspects of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal order.

In a more simplistic manner, Winston Nagan has classified opinions which have as central element “abortion”, in two major categories: the opinion that the priority element is represented by fetus and his entitlement to life and the second opinion, which focuses around women’s rights [ 4 ].

From the medical point of view, since ancient times there have been four moments, generally accepted, which determine the embryo’s life: ( i ) conception; ( ii ) period of formation; ( iii ) detection moment of fetal movement; ( iv ) time of birth [ 5 ]. Contemporary medicine found the following moments in the evolution of intrauterine fetal: “ 1 . At 18 days of pregnancy, the fetal heartbeat can be perceived and it starts running the circulatory system; 2 . At 5 weeks, they become more clear: the nose, cheeks and fingers of the fetus; 3 . At 6 weeks, they start to function: the nervous system, stomach, kidneys and liver of the fetus, and its skeleton is clearly distinguished; 4 . At 7 weeks (50 days), brain waves are felt. The fetus has all the internal and external organs definitively outlined. 5 . At 10 weeks (70 days), the unborn child has all the features clearly defined as a child after birth (9 months); 6 . At 12 weeks (92 days, 3 months), the fetus has all organs definitely shaped, managing to move, lacking only the breath” [ 6 ]. Even if most of the laws that allow abortion consider the period up to 12 weeks acceptable for such an intervention, according to the above-mentioned steps, there can be defined different moments, which can represent the beginning of life. Nowadays, “abortion is one of the most common gynecological experiences and perhaps the majority of women will undergo an abortion in their lifetimes” [ 7 ]. “Safe abortions carry few health risks, but « every year, close to 20 million women risk their lives and health by undergoing unsafe abortions » and 25% will face a complication with permanent consequences” [ 8 , 9 ].

From the ethical point of view, most of the times, the interruption of pregnancy is on the border between woman’s right over her own body and the child’s (fetus) entitlement to life. Judith Jarvis Thomson supported the supremacy of woman’s right over her own body as a premise of freedom, arguing that we cannot force a person to bear in her womb and give birth to an unwanted child, if for different circumstances, she does not want to do this [ 10 ]. To support his position, the author uses an imaginary experiment, that of a violinist to which we are connected for nine months, in order to save his life. However, Thomson debates the problem of the differentiation between the fetus and the human being, by carrying out a debate on the timing which makes this difference (period of conception, 10 weeks of pregnancy, etc.) and highlighting that for people who support abortion, the fetus is not an alive human being [ 10 ].

Carol Gilligan noted that women undergo a true “moral dilemma”, a “moral conflict” with regards to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, such a decision often takes into account the human relationships, the possibility of not hurting the others, the responsibility towards others [ 11 ]. Gilligan applied qualitative interviews to a number of 29 women from different social classes, which were put in a position to decide whether or not to commit abortion. The interview focused on the woman’s choice, on alternative options, on individuals and existing conflicts. The conclusion was that the central moral issue was the conflict between the self (the pregnant woman) and others who may be hurt as a result of the potential pregnancy [ 12 ].

From the religious point of view, abortion is unacceptable for all religions and a small number of abortions can be seen in deeply religious societies and families. Christianity considers the beginning of human life from conception, and abortion is considered to be a form of homicide [ 13 ]. For Christians, “at the same time, abortion is giving up their faith”, riot and murder, which means that by an abortion we attack Jesus Christ himself and God [ 14 ]. Islam does not approve abortion, relying on the sacral life belief as specified in Chapter 6, Verse 151 of the Koran: “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred (inviolable)” [ 15 ]. Buddhism considers abortion as a negative act, but nevertheless supports for medical reasons [ 16 ]. Judaism disapproves abortion, Tanah considering it to be a mortal sin. Hinduism considers abortion as a crime and also the greatest sin [ 17 ].

From the socio-economic point of view, the decision to carry out an abortion is many times determined by the relations within the social, family or financial frame. Moreover, studies have been conducted, which have linked the legalization of abortions and the decrease of the crime rate: “legalized abortion may lead to reduced crime either through reductions in cohort sizes or through lower per capita offending rates for affected cohorts” [ 18 ].

Legal regulation on abortion establishes conditions of the abortion in every state. In Europe and America, only in the XVIIth century abortion was incriminated and was considered an insignificant misdemeanor or a felony, depending on when was happening. Due to the large number of illegal abortions and deaths, two centuries later, many states have changed legislation within the meaning of legalizing voluntary interruption of pregnancy [ 6 ]. In contemporary society, international organizations like the United Nations or the European Union consider sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental rights [ 19 , 20 ], and promotes the acceptance of abortion as part of those rights. However, not all states have developed permissive legislation in the field of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Currently, at national level were established four categories of legislation on pregnancy interruption area:

( i )  Prohibitive legislations , ones that do not allow abortion, most often outlining exceptions in abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. In some countries, there is a prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, however, resorting to an abortion in the case of an imminent threat to the mother’s life. Same regulation is also found in some countries where abortion is allowed in cases like rape, incest, fetal problems, etc. In this category are 66 states, with 25.5% of world population [ 21 ].

( ii )  Restrictive legislation that allow abortion in cases of health preservation . Loosely, the term “health” should be interpreted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [ 22 ]. This type of legislation is adopted in 59 states populated by 13.8% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iii )  Legislation allowing abortion on a socio-economic motivation . This category includes items such as the woman’s age or ability to care for a child, fetal problems, cases of rape or incest, etc. In this category are 13 countries, where we have 21.3% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iv )  Legislation which do not impose restrictions on abortion . In the case of this legislation, abortion is permitted for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (Romania – 14 weeks, Slovenia – 10 weeks, Sweden – 18 weeks), the interruption of pregnancy after this period has some restrictions. This type of legislation is adopted in 61 countries with 39.5% of the world population [21].

The Centre for Reproductive Rights has carried out from 1998 a map of the world’s states, based on the legislation typology of each country (Figure ​ (Figure1 1 ).

The analysis of states according to the legislation regarding abortion. Source: Centre for Reproductive Rights. The World’s Abortion Laws, 2018 [ 23 ]

An unplanned pregnancy, socio-economic context or various medical problems [ 24 ], lead many times to the decision of interrupting pregnancy, regardless the legislative restrictions. In the study “Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2008” issued in 2011 by the WHO , it was determined that within the states with restrictive legislation on abortion, we may also encounter a large number of illegal abortions. The illegal abortions may also be resulting in an increased risk of woman’s health and life considering that most of the times inappropriate techniques are being used, the hygienic conditions are precarious and the medical treatments are incorrectly administered [ 25 ]. Although abortions done according to medical guidelines carry very low risk of complications, 1–3 unsafe abortions contribute substantially to maternal morbidity and death worldwide [ 26 ].

WHO has estimated for the year 2008, the fact that worldwide women between the ages of 15 and 44 years carried out 21.6 million “unsafe” abortions, which involved a high degree of risk and were distributed as follows: 0.4 million in the developed regions and a number of 21.2 million in the states in course of development [ 25 ].

Case study: Romania

Legal perspective on abortion

In Romania, abortion was brought under regulation by the first Criminal Code of the United Principalities, from 1864.

The Criminal Code from 1864, provided the abortion infringement in Article 246, on which was regulated as follows: “Any person, who, using means such as food, drinks, pills or any other means, which will consciously help a pregnant woman to commit abortion, will be punished to a minimum reclusion (three years).

The woman who by herself shall use the means of abortion, or would accept to use means of abortion which were shown or given to her for this purpose, will be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years, if the result would be an abortion. In a situation where abortion was carried out on an illegitimate baby by his mother, the punishment will be imprisonment from six months to one year.

Doctors, surgeons, health officers, pharmacists (apothecary) and midwives who will indicate, will give or will facilitate these means, shall be punished with reclusion of at least four years, if the abortion took place. If abortion will cause the death of the mother, the punishment will be much austere of four years” (Art. 246) [ 27 ].

The Criminal Code from 1864, reissued in 1912, amended in part the Article 246 for the purposes of eliminating the abortion of an illegitimate baby case. Furthermore, it was no longer specified the minimum of four years of reclusion, in case of abortion carried out with the help of the medical staff, leaving the punishment to the discretion of the Court (Art. 246) [ 28 ].

The Criminal Code from 1936 regulated abortion in the Articles 482–485. Abortion was defined as an interruption of the normal course of pregnancy, being punished as follows:

“ 1 . When the crime is committed without the consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 2 to 5 years. If it caused the pregnant woman any health injury or a serious infirmity, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 years, and if it has caused her death, reformatory imprisonment from 7 to 10 years;

2 . When the crime was committed by the unmarried pregnant woman by herself, or when she agreed that someone else should provoke the abortion, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 months, and if the woman is married, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 6 months to one year. Same penalty applies also to the person who commits the crime with the woman’s consent. If abortion was committed for the purpose of obtaining a benefit, the punishment increases with another 2 years of reformatory imprisonment.

If it caused the pregnant woman any health injuries or a severe disablement, the punishment will be reformatory imprisonment from one to 3 years, and if it has caused her death, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 5 years” (Art. 482) [ 29 ].

The criminal legislation from 1936 specifies that it is not considered as an abortion the interruption from the normal course of pregnancy, if it was carried out by a doctor “when woman’s life was in imminent danger or when the pregnancy aggravates a woman’s disease, putting her life in danger, which could not be removed by other means and it is obvious that the intervention wasn’t performed with another purpose than that of saving the woman’s life” and “when one of the parents has reached a permanent alienation and it is certain that the child will bear serious mental flaws” (Art. 484, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 29 ].

In the event of an imminent danger, the doctor was obliged to notify prosecutor’s office in writing, within 48 hours after the intervention, on the performance of the abortion. “In the other cases, the doctor was able to intervene only with the authorization of the prosecutor’s office, given on the basis of a medical certificate from hospital or a notice given as a result of a consultation between the doctor who will intervene and at least a professor doctor in the disease which caused the intervention. General’s Office Prosecutor, in all cases provided by this Article, shall be obliged to maintain the confidentiality of all communications or authorizations, up to the intercession of any possible complaints” (Art. 484) [ 29 ].

The legislation of 1936 provided a reformatory injunction from one to three years for the abortions committed by doctors, sanitary agents, pharmacists, apothecary or midwives (Art. 485) [ 29 ].

Abortion on demand has been legalized for the first time in Romania in the year 1957 by the Decree No. 463, under the condition that it had to be carried out in a hospital and to be carried out in the first quarter of the pregnancy [ 30 ]. In the year 1966, demographic policy of Romania has dramatically changed by introducing the Decree No. 770 from September 29 th , which prohibited abortion. Thus, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy became a crime, with certain exceptions, namely: endangering the mother’s life, physical or mental serious disability; serious or heritable illness, mother’s age over 45 years, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest or if the woman gave birth to at least four children who were still in her care (Art. 2) [ 31 ].

In the Criminal Code from 1968, the abortion crime was governed by Articles 185–188.

The Article 185, “the illegal induced abortion”, stipulated that “the interruption of pregnancy by any means, outside the conditions permitted by law, with the consent of the pregnant woman will be punished with imprisonment from one to 3 years”. The act referred to above, without the prior consent from the pregnant woman, was punished with prison from two to five years. If the abortion carried out with the consent of the pregnant woman caused any serious body injury, the punishment was imprisonment from two to five years, and when it caused the death of the woman, the prison sentence was from five to 10 years. When abortion was carried out without the prior consent of the woman, if it caused her a serious physical injury, the punishment was imprisonment from three to six years, and if it caused the woman’s death, the punishment was imprisonment from seven to 12 years (Art. 185) [ 32 ].

“When abortion was carried out in order to obtain a material benefit, the maximum punishment was increased by two years, and if the abortion was made by a doctor, in addition to the prison punishment could also be applied the prohibition to no longer practice the profession of doctor”.

Article 186, “abortion caused by the woman”, stipulated that “the interruption of the pregnancy course, committed by the pregnant woman, was punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years”, quoting the fact that by the same punishment was also sanctioned “the pregnant woman’s act to consent in interrupting the pregnancy course made out by another person” (Art. 186) [ 26 ].

The Regulations of the Criminal Code in 1968, also provided the crime of “ownership of tools or materials that can cause abortion”, the conditions of this holding being met when these types of instruments were held outside the hospital’s specialized institutions, the infringement shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to one year (Art. 187) [ 32 ].

Furthermore, the doctors who performed an abortion in the event of extreme urgency, without prior legal authorization and if they did not announce the competent authority within the legal deadline, they were punished by imprisonment from one month to three months (Art. 188) [ 32 ].

In the year 1985, it has been issued the Decree No. 411 of December 26 th , by which the conditions imposed by the Decree No. 770 of 1966 have been hardened, meaning that it has increased the number of children, that a woman could have in order to request an abortion, from four to five children [ 33 ].

The Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and the Decree No. 770/1966 on the interruption of the pregnancy course have been abrogated by Decree-Law No. 1 from December 26 th , 1989, which was published in the Official Gazette No. 4 of December 27 th , 1989 (Par. 8 and Par. 12) [ 34 ].

The Criminal Code from 1968, reissued in 1997, maintained Article 185 about “the illegal induced abortion”, but drastically modified. Thus, in this case of the Criminal Code, we identify abortion as “the interruption of pregnancy course, by any means, committed in any of the following circumstances: ( a ) outside medical institutions or authorized medical practices for this purpose; ( b ) by a person who does not have the capacity of specialized doctor; ( c ) if age pregnancy has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment laid down was the imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years” (Art. 185, Par. 1) [ 35 ]. For the abortion committed without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment consisted in strict prison conditions from two to seven years and with the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 2) [ 35 ].

For the situation of causing serious physical injury to the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from three to 10 years and the removal of certain rights, and if it had as a result the death of the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from five to 15 years and the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 3) [ 35 ].

The attempt was punished for the crimes specified in the various cases of abortion.

Consideration should also be given in the Criminal Code reissued in 1997 for not punishing the interruption of the pregnancy course carried out by the doctor, if this interruption “was necessary to save the life, health or the physical integrity of the pregnant woman from a grave and imminent danger and that it could not be removed otherwise; in the case of a over fourteen weeks pregnancy, when the interruption of the pregnancy course should take place from therapeutic reasons” and even in a situation of a woman’s lack of consent, when it has not been given the opportunity to express her will, and abortion “was imposed by therapeutic reasons” (Art. 185, Par. 4) [ 35 ].

Criminal Code from 2004 covers abortion in Article 190, defined in the same way as in the prior Criminal Code, with the difference that it affects the limits of the punishment. So, in the event of pregnancy interruption, in accordance with the conditions specified in Paragraph 1, “the penalty provided was prison time from 6 months to one year or days-fine” (Art. 190, Par. 1) [ 36 ].

Nowadays, in Romania, abortion is governed by the criminal law of 2009, which entered into force in 2014, by the section called “aggression against an unborn child”. It should be specified that current criminal law does not punish the woman responsible for carrying out abortion, but only the person who is involved in carrying out the abortion. There is no punishment for the pregnant woman who injures her fetus during pregnancy.

In Article 201, we can find the details on the pregnancy interruption infringement. Thus, the pregnancy interruption can be performed in one of the following circumstances: “outside of medical institutions or medical practices authorized for this purpose; by a person who does not have the capacity of specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the right of free medical practice in this specialty; if gestational age has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment is the imprisonment for six months to three years, or fine and the prohibition to exercise certain rights (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

Article 201, Paragraph 2 specifies that “the interruption of the pregnancy committed under any circumstances, without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, can be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 7 years and with the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

If by facts referred to above (Art. 201, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 37 ] “it has caused the pregnant woman’s physical injury, the punishment is the imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights, and if it has had as a result the pregnant woman’s death, the punishment is the imprisonment from 6 to 12 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 3) [ 37 ]. When the facts have been committed by a doctor, “in addition to the imprisonment punishment, it will also be applied the prohibition to exercise the profession of doctor (Art. 201, Par. 4) [ 37 ].

Criminal legislation specifies that “the interruption of pregnancy does not constitute an infringement with the purpose of a treatment carried out by a specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, until the pregnancy age of twenty-four weeks is reached, or the subsequent pregnancy interruption, for the purpose of treatment, is in the interests of the mother or the fetus” (Art. 201, Par. 6) [ 37 ]. However, it can all be found in the phrases “therapeutic purposes” and “the interest of the mother and of the unborn child”, which predisposes the text of law to an interpretation, finally the doctors are the only ones in the position to decide what should be done in such cases, assuming direct responsibility [ 38 ].

Article 202 of the Criminal Code defines the crime of harming an unborn child, pointing out the punishments for the various types of injuries that can occur during pregnancy or in the childbirth period and which can be caused by the mother or by the persons who assist the birth, with the specification that the mother who harms her fetus during pregnancy is not punished and does not constitute an infringement if the injury has been committed during pregnancy or during childbirth period if the facts have been “committed by a doctor or by an authorized person to assist the birth or to follow the pregnancy, if they have been committed in the course of the medical act, complying with the specific provisions of his profession and have been made in the interest of the pregnant woman or fetus, as a result of the exercise of an inherent risk in the medical act” (Art. 202, Par. 6) [ 37 ].

The fact situation in Romania

During the period 1948–1955, called “the small baby boom” [ 39 ], Romania registered an average fertility rate of 3.23 children for a woman. Between 1955 and 1962, the fertility rate has been less than three children for a woman, and in 1962, fertility has reached an average of two children for a woman. This phenomenon occurred because of the Decree No. 463/1957 on liberalization of abortion. After the liberalization from 1957, the abortion rate has increased from 220 abortions per 100 born-alive children in the year 1960, to 400 abortions per 100 born-alive children, in the year 1965 [ 40 ].

The application of provisions of Decrees No. 770 of 1966 and No. 411 of 1985 has led to an increase of the birth rate in the first three years (an average of 3.7 children in 1967, and 3.6 children in 1968), followed by a regression until 1989, when it was recorded an average of 2.2 children, but also a maternal death rate caused by illegal abortions, raising up to 85 deaths of 100 000 births in the year of 1965, and 170 deaths in 1983. It was estimated that more than 80% of maternal deaths between 1980–1989 was caused by legal constraints [ 30 ].

After the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 and after the communism fall, with the abrogation of Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and of the Decree No. 770/1966, by the Decree of Law No. 1 of December 26 th , 1989, abortion has become legal in Romania and so, in the following years, it has reached the highest rate of abortion in Europe. Subsequently, the number of abortion has dropped gradually, with increasing use of birth control [ 41 ].

Statistical data issued by the Ministry of Health and by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in Romania show corresponding figures to a legally carried out abortion. The abortion number is much higher, if it would take into account the number of illegal abortion, especially those carried out before 1989, and those carried out in private clinics, after the year 1990. Summing the declared abortions in the period 1958–2014, it is to be noted the number of them, 22 037 747 exceeds the current Romanian population. A detailed statistical research of abortion rate, in terms of years we have exposed in Table ​ Table1 1 .

The number of abortions declared in Romania in the period 1958–2016

Source: Pro Vita Association (Bucharest, Romania), National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania), EUROSTAT [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]

Data issued by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in June 2016, for the period 1989–2014, in matters of reproductive behavior, indicates a fertility rate for Romania with a continuous decrease, in proportion to the decrease of the number of births, but also a lower number of abortion rate reported to 100 deliveries (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Reproductive behavior in Romania in 1989–2014

Source: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Transformative Monitoring for Enhanced Equity (TransMonEE) Data. Country profiles: Romania, 1989–2015 [ 45 ].

By analyzing data issued for the period 1990–2015 by the International Organization of Health , UNICEF , United Nations Fund for Population Activity (UNFPA), The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, it is noticed that maternal mortality rate has currently dropped as compared with 1990 (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Maternal mortality estimation in Romania in 1990–2015

Source: World Health Organization (WHO), Global Health Observatory Data. Maternal mortality country profiles: Romania, 2015 [ 46 ].

Opinion survey: women’s opinion on abortion

Argument for choosing the research theme

Although the problematic on abortion in Romania has been extensively investigated and debated, it has not been carried out in an ample sociological study, covering Romanian women’s perception on abortion. We have assumed making a study at national level, in order to identify the opinion on abortion, on the motivation to carry out an abortion, and to identify the correlation between religious convictions and the attitude toward abortion.

Examining the literature field of study

In the conceptual register of the research, we have highlighted items, such as the specialized literature, legislation, statistical documents.

Formulation of hypotheses and objectives

The first hypothesis was that Romanian women accept abortion, having an open attitude towards this act. Thus, the first objective of the research was to identify Romanian women’s attitude towards abortion.

The second hypothesis, from which we started, was that high religious beliefs generate a lower tolerance towards abortion. Thus, the second objective of our research has been to identify the correlation between the religious beliefs and the attitude towards abortion.

The third hypothesis of the survey was that, the main motivation in carrying out an abortion is the fact that a woman does not want a baby, and the main motivation for keeping the pregnancy is that the person wants a baby. In this context, the third objective of the research was to identify main motivation in carrying out an abortion and in maintaining a pregnancy.

Another hypothesis was that modern Romanian legislation on the abortion is considered fair. Based on this hypothesis, we have assumed the fourth objective, which is to identify the degree of satisfaction towards the current regulatory provisions governing the abortion.

Research methodology

The research method is that of a sociological survey by the application of the questionnaire technique. We used the sampling by age and residence looking at representative numbers of population from more developed as well as underdeveloped areas.

Determination of the sample to be studied

Because abortion is a typical women’s experience, we have chosen to make the quantitative research only among women. We have constructed the sample by selecting a number of 1260 women between the ages of 15 and 44 years (the most frequently encountered age among women who give birth to a child). We also used the quota sampling techniques, taking into account the following variables: age group and the residence (urban/rural), so that the persons included in the sample could retain characteristic of the general population.

By the sample of 1260 women, we have made a percentage of investigation of 0.03% of the total population.

The Questionnaires number applied was distributed as follows (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

The sampling rates based on the age, and the region of residence

Source: Sample built, based on the population data issued by the National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania) based on population census conducted in 2011 [ 47 ].

Data collection

Data collection was carried out by questionnaires administered by 32 field operators between May 1 st –May 31 st , 2018.

The analysis of the research results

In the next section, we will present the main results of the quantitative research carried out at national level.

Almost three-quarters of women included in the sample agree with carrying out an abortion in certain circumstances (70%) and only 24% have chosen to support the answer “ No, never ”. In modern contemporary society, abortion is the first solution of women for which a pregnancy is not desired. Even if advanced medical techniques are a lot safer, an abortion still carries a health risk. However, 6% of respondents agree with carrying out abortion regardless of circumstances (Table ​ (Table5 5 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion

Although abortions carried out after 14 weeks are illegal, except for medical reasons, more than half of the surveyed women stated they would agree with abortion in certain circumstances. At the opposite pole, 31% have mentioned they would never agree on abortions after 14 weeks. Five percent were totally accepting the idea of abortion made to a pregnancy that has exceeded 14 weeks (Table ​ (Table6 6 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion after the period of 14 weeks of pregnancy

For 53% of respondents, abortion is considered a crime as well as the right of a women. On the other hand, 28% of the women considered abortion as a crime and 16% associate abortion with a woman’s right (Table ​ (Table7 7 ).

Opinion on abortion: at the border between crime and a woman’s right

Opinions on what women abort at the time of the voluntary pregnancy interruption are split in two: 59% consider that it depends on the time of the abortion, and more specifically on the pregnancy development stage, 24% consider that regardless of the period in which it is carried out, women abort a child, and 14% have opted a fetus (Table ​ (Table8 8 ).

Abortion of a child vs. abortion of a fetus

Among respondents who consider that women abort a child or a fetus related to the time of abortion, 37.5% have considered that the difference between a baby and a fetus appears after 14 weeks of pregnancy (the period legally accepted for abortion). Thirty-three percent of them have mentioned that the distinction should be performed at the first few heartbeats; 18.1% think it is about when the child has all the features definitively outlined and can move by himself; 2.8% consider that the difference appears when the first encephalopathy traces are being felt and the child has formed all internal and external organs. A percentage of 1.7% of respondents consider that this difference occurs at the beginning of the central nervous system, and 1.4% when the unborn child has all the features that we can clearly see to a newborn child (Table ​ (Table9 9 ).

The opinion on the moment that makes the difference between a fetus and a child

We noticed that highly religious people make a clear association between abortion and crime. They also consider that at the time of pregnancy interruption it is aborted a child and not a fetus. However, unexpectedly, we noticed that 27% of the women, who declare themselves to be very religious, have also stated that they see abortion as a crime but also as a woman’s right. Thirty-one percent of the women, who also claimed profound religious beliefs, consider that abortion may be associated with the abortion of a child but also of a fetus, this depending on the time of abortion (Tables ​ (Tables10 10 and ​ and11 11 ).

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion seen as a crime or a right

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion procedure conducted on a fetus or a child

More than half of the respondents have opted for the main reason for abortion the appearance of medical problems to the child. Baby’s health represents the main concern of future mothers, and of each parent, and the birth of a child with serious health issues, is a factor which frightens any future parent, being many times, at least theoretically, one good reason for opting for abortion. At the opposite side, 12% of respondents would not choose abortion under any circumstances. Other reasons for which women would opt for an abortion are: if the woman would have a medical problem (22%) or would not want the child (10%) (Table ​ (Table12 12 ).

Potential reasons for carrying out an abortion

Most of the women want to give birth to a child, 56% of the respondents, representing also the reason that would determine them to keep the child. Morality (26%), faith (10%) or legal restrictions (4%), are the three other reasons for which women would not interrupt a pregnancy. Only 2% of the respondents have mentioned other reasons such as health or age.

A percentage of 23% of the surveyed people said that they have done an abortion so far, and 77% did not opted for a surgical intervention either because there was no need, or because they have kept the pregnancy (Table ​ (Table13 13 ).

Rate of abortion among women in the sample

Most respondents, 87% specified that they have carried out an abortion during the first 14 weeks – legally accepted limit for abortion: 43.6% have made abortion in the first four weeks, 39.1% between weeks 4–8, and 4.3% between weeks 8–14. It should be noted that 8.7% could not appreciate the pregnancy period in which they carried out abortion, by opting to answer with the option “ I don’t know ”, and a percentage of 4.3% refused to answer to this question.

Performing an abortion is based on many reasons, but the fact that the women have not wanted a child is the main reason mentioned by 47.8% of people surveyed, who have done minimum an abortion so far. Among the reasons for the interruption of pregnancy, it is also included: women with medical problems (13.3%), not the right time to be a mother (10.7%), age motivation (8.7%), due to medical problems of the child (4.3%), the lack of money (4.3%), family pressure (4.3%), partner/spouse did not wanted. A percentage of 3.3% of women had different reasons for abortion, as follows: age difference too large between children, career, marital status, etc. Asked later whether they regretted the abortion, a rate of 69.6% of women who said they had at least one abortion regret it (34.8% opted for “ Yes ”, and 34.8% said “ Yes, partially ”). 26.1% of surveyed women do not regret the choice to interrupted the pregnancy, and 4.3% chose to not answer this question. We noted that, for women who have already experienced abortion, the causes were more diverse than the grounds on which the previous question was asked: “What are the reasons that determined you to have an abortion?” (Table ​ (Table14 14 ).

The reasons that led the women in the sample to have an abortion

The majority of the respondents (37.5%) considered that “nervous depression” is the main consequence of abortion, followed by “insomnia and nightmares” (24.6%), “disorders in alimentation” and “affective disorders” (each for 7.7% of respondents), “deterioration of interpersonal relationships” and “the feeling of guilt”(for 6.3% of the respondents), “sexual disorders” and “panic attacks” (for 6.3% of the respondents) (Table ​ (Table15 15 ).

Opinion on the consequences of abortion

Over half of the respondents believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, as currently provided by law, 39% say it should be always legal, and only 6% opted for the illegal option (Table ​ (Table16 16 ).

Opinion on the legal regulation of abortion

Although the current legislation does not punish pregnant women who interrupt pregnancy or intentionally injured their fetus, survey results indicate that 61% of women surveyed believe that the national law should punish the woman and only 28% agree with the current legislation (Table ​ (Table17 17 ).

Opinion on the possibility of punishing the woman who interrupts the course of pregnancy or injures the fetus

For the majority of the respondents (40.6%), the penalty provided by the current legislation, the imprisonment between six months and three years or a fine and deprivation of certain rights for the illegal abortion is considered fair, for a percentage of 39.6% the punishment is too small for 9.5% of the respondents is too high. Imprisonment between two and seven years and deprivation of certain rights for an abortion performed without the consent of the pregnant woman is considered too small for 65% of interviewees. Fourteen percent of them think it is fair and only 19% of respondents consider that Romanian legislation is too severe with people who commit such an act considering the punishment as too much. The imprisonment from three to 10 years and deprivation of certain rights for the facts described above, if an injury was caused to the woman, is considered to be too small for more than half of those included in the survey, 64% and almost 22% for nearly a quarter of them. Only 9% of the respondents mentioned that this legislative measure is too severe for such actions (Table ​ (Table18 18 ).

Opinion on the regulation of abortion of the Romanian Criminal Code (Art. 201)

Conclusions

After analyzing the results of the sociological research regarding abortion undertaken at national level, we see that 76% of the Romanian women accept abortion, indicating that the majority accepts only certain circumstances (a certain period after conception, for medical reasons, etc.). A percentage of 64% of the respondents indicated that they accept the idea of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy (for solid reasons or regardless the reason). This study shows that over 50% of Romanian women see abortion as a right of women but also a woman’s crime and believe that in the moment of interruption of a pregnancy, a fetus is aborted. Mostly, the association of abortion with crime and with the idea that a child is aborted is frequently found within very religious people. The main motivation for Romanian women in taking the decision not to perform an abortion is that they would want the child, and the main reason to perform an abortion is the child’s medical problems. However, it is noted that, in real situations, in which women have already done at least one abortion, most women resort to abortion because they did not want the child towards the hypothetical situation in which women felt that the main reason of abortion is a medical problem. Regarding the satisfaction with the current national legislation of the abortion, the situation is rather surprising. A significant percentage (61%) of respondents felt as necessary to punish the woman who performs an illegal abortion, although the legislation does not provide a punishment. On the other hand, satisfaction level to the penalties provided by law for various violations of the legal conditions for conducting abortion is low, on average only 25.5% of respondents are being satisfied with these, the majority (average 56.2%) considering the penalties as unsatisfactory. Understood as a social phenomenon, intensified by human vulnerabilities, of which the most obvious is accepting the comfort [ 48 ], abortion today is no longer, in Romanian society, from a legal or religious perspective, a problem. Perceptions on the legislative sanction, moral and religious will perpetual vary depending on beliefs, environment, education, etc. The only and the biggest social problem of Romania is truly represented by the steadily falling birth rate.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

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5.1: Arguments Against Abortion

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• Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob
• Morehouse College & University of South Carolina Sumter via Open Philosophy Press

We will begin with arguments for the conclusion that abortion is generally wrong , perhaps nearly always wrong . These can be seen as reasons to believe fetuses have the “right to life” or are otherwise seriously wrong to kill.

5.1.1 Fetuses are human

First, there is the claim that fetuses are “human” and so abortion is wrong. People sometimes debate whether fetuses are human , but fetuses found in (human) women clearly are biologically human : they aren’t cats or dogs. And so we have this argument, with a clearly true first premise:

Fetuses are biologically human.

All things that are biologically human are wrong to kill.

Therefore, fetuses are wrong to kill.

The second premise, however, is false, as easy counterexamples show. Consider some random living biologically human cells or tissues in a petri dish. It wouldn’t be wrong at all to wash those cells or tissues down the drain, killing them; scratching yourself or shaving might kill some biologically human skin cells, but that’s not wrong; a tumor might be biologically human, but not wrong to kill. So just because something is biologically human, that does not at all mean it’s wrong to kill that thing. We saw this same point about what’s merely biologically alive.

This suggests a deficiency in some common understandings of the important idea of “human rights.” “Human rights” are sometimes described as rights someone has just because they are human or simply in virtue of being human .

But the human cells in the petri dish above don’t have “human rights” and a human heart wouldn’t have “human rights” either. Many examples would make it clear that merely being biologically human doesn’t give something human rights. And many human rights advocates do not think that abortion is wrong, despite recognizing that (human) fetuses are biologically human.

The problem about what is often said about human rights is that people often do not think about what makes human beings have rights or why we have them, when we have them. The common explanation, that we have (human) rights just because we are (biologically) human , is incorrect, as the above discussion makes clear. This misunderstanding of the basis or foundation of human rights is problematic because it leads to a widespread, misplaced fixation on whether fetuses are merely biologically “human” and the mistaken thought that if they are, they have “human rights.” To address this problem, we need to identify better, more fundamental, explanations why we have rights, or why killing us is generally wrong, and see how those explanations might apply to fetuses, as we are doing here.

It might be that when people appeal to the importance and value of being “human,” the concern isn’t our biology itself, but the psychological characteristics that many human beings have: consciousness, awareness, feelings and so on. We will discuss this different meaning of “human” below. This meaning of “human” might be better expressed as conscious being , or “person,” or human person. This might be what people have in mind when they argue that fetuses aren’t even “human.”

Human rights are vitally important, and we would do better if we spoke in terms of “conscious-being rights” or “person-rights,” not “human rights.” This more accurate and informed understanding and terminology would help address human rights issues in general, and help us better think through ethical questions about biologically human embryos and fetuses.

5.1.2 Fetuses are human beings

Some respond to the arguments above—against the significance of being merely biologically human—by observing that fetuses aren’t just mere human cells, but are organized in ways that make them beings or organisms . (A kidney is part of a “being,” but the “being” is the whole organism.) That suggests this argument:

Fetuses are human beings or organisms .

All human beings or organisms are wrong to kill.

Therefore, fetuses are wrong to kill, so abortion is wrong.

The first premise is true: fetuses are dependent beings, but dependent beings are still beings.

The second premise, however, is the challenge, in terms of providing good reasons to accept it. Clearly many human beings or organisms are wrong to kill, or wrong to kill unless there’s a good reason that would justify that killing, e.g., self-defense. (This is often described by philosophers as us being prima facie wrong to kill, in contrast to absolutely or necessarily wrong to kill.) Why is this though? What makes us wrong to kill? And do these answers suggest that all human beings or organisms are wrong to kill?

Above it was argued that we are wrong to kill because we are conscious and feeling: we are aware of the world, have feelings and our perspectives can go better or worse for us —we can be harmed— and that’s what makes killing us wrong. It may also sometimes be not wrong to let us die, and perhaps even kill us, if we come to completely and permanently lacking consciousness, say from major brain damage or a coma, since we can’t be harmed by death anymore: we might even be described as dead in the sense of being “brain dead.” 10

So, on this explanation, human beings are wrong to kill, when they are wrong to kill, not because they are human beings (a circular explanation), but because we have psychological, mental or emotional characteristics like these. This explains why we have rights in a simple, common-sense way: it also simply explains why rocks, microorganisms and plants don’t have rights. The challenge then is explaining why fetuses that have never been conscious or had any feeling or awareness would be wrong to kill. How then can the second premise above, general to all human organisms, be supported, especially when applied to early fetuses?

One common attempt is to argue that early fetuses are wrong to kill because there is continuous development from fetuses to us, and since we are wrong to kill now , fetuses are also wrong to kill, since we’ve been the “same being” all along. 11 But this can’t be good reasoning, since we have many physical, cognitive, emotional and moral characteristics now that we lacked as fetuses (and as children). So even if we are the “same being” over time, even if we were once early fetuses, that doesn’t show that fetuses have the moral rights that babies, children and adults have: we, our bodies and our rights sometimes change.

A second attempt proposes that rights are essential to human organisms: they have them whenever they exist. This perspective sees having rights, or the characteristics that make someone have rights, as essential to living human organisms. The claim is that “having rights” is an essential property of human beings or organisms, and so whenever there’s a living human organism, there’s someone with rights, even if that organism totally lacks consciousness, like an early fetus. (In contrast, the proposal we advocate for about what makes us have rights understands rights as “accidental” to our bodies but “essential” to our minds or awareness, since our bodies haven’t always “contained” a conscious being, so to speak.)

Such a view supports the premise above; maybe it just is that premise above. But why believe that rights are essential to human organisms? Some argue this is because of what “kind” of beings we are, which is often presumed to be “rational beings.” The reasoning seems to be this: first, that rights come from being a rational being: this is part of our “nature.” Second, that all human organisms, including fetuses, are the “kind” of being that is a “rational being,” so every being of the “kind” rational being has rights. 12

In response, this explanation might seem question-begging: it might amount to just asserting that all human beings have rights. This explanation is, at least, abstract. It seems to involve some categorization and a claim that everyone who is in a certain category has some of the same moral characteristics that others in that category have, but because of a characteristic (actual rationality) that only these others have: so, these others profoundly define what everyone else is . If this makes sense, why not also categorize us all as not rational beings , if we are the same kind of beings as fetuses that are actually not rational?

This explanation might seem to involve thinking that rights somehow “trickle down” from later rationality to our embryonic origins, and so what we have later we also have earlier , because we are the same being or the same “kind” of being. But this idea is, in general, doubtful: we are now responsible beings, in part because we are rational beings, but fetuses aren’t responsible for anything. And we are now able to engage in moral reasoning since we are rational beings, but fetuses don’t have the “rights” that uniquely depend on moral reasoning abilities. So that an individual is a member of some general group or kind doesn’t tell us much about their rights: that depends on the actual details about that individual, beyond their being members of a group or kind.

To make this more concrete, return to the permanently comatose individuals mentioned above: are we the same kind of beings, of the same “essence,” as these human beings? If so, then it seems that some human beings can be not wrong to let die or kill, when they have lost consciousness. Therefore, perhaps some other human beings, like early fetuses, are also not wrong to kill before they have gained consciousness . And if we are not the same “kind” of beings, or have different essences, then perhaps we also aren’t the same kind of beings as fetuses either.

Similar questions arise concerning anencephalic babies, tragically born without most of their brains: are they the same “kind” of beings as “regular” babies or us? If so, then—since such babies are arguably morally permissible to let die, even when they could be kept alive, since being alive does them no good—then being of our “kind” doesn’t mean the individual has the same rights as us, since letting us die would be wrong. But if such babies are a different “kind” of beings than us, then pre-conscious fetuses might be of a relevantly different kind also.

So, in general, this proposal that early fetuses essentially have rights is suspect, if we evaluate the reasons given in its support. Even if fetuses and us are the same “kind” of beings (which perhaps we are not!) that doesn’t immediately tell us what rights fetuses would have, if any. And we might even reasonably think that, despite our being the same kind of beings as fetuses (e.g., the same kind of biology), we are also importantly different kinds of beings (e.g., one kind with a mental life and another kind which has never had it). This photograph of a 6-week old fetus might help bring out the ambiguity in what kinds of beings we all are:

In sum, the abstract view that all human organisms have rights essentially needs to be plausibly explained and defended. We need to understand how it really works. We need to be shown why it’s a better explanation, all things considered, than a consciousness and feelings-based theory of rights that simply explains why we, and babies, have rights, why racism, sexism and other forms of clearly wrongful discrimination are wrong, and , importantly, how we might lose rights in irreversible coma cases (if people always retained the right to life in these circumstances, presumably, it would be wrong to let anyone die), and more.

5.1.3 Fetuses are persons

Finally, we get to what some see as the core issue here, namely whether fetuses are persons , and an argument like this:

Fetuses are persons, perhaps from conception.

Persons have the right to life and are wrong to kill.

So, abortion is wrong, as it involves killing persons.

The second premise seems very plausible, but there are some important complications about it that will be discussed later. So let’s focus on the idea of personhood and whether any fetuses are persons. What is it to be a person ? One answer that everyone can agree on is that persons are beings with rights and value . That’s a fine answer, but it takes us back to the initial question: OK, who or what has the rights and value of persons? What makes someone or something a person?

Answers here are often merely asserted , but these answers need to be tested: definitions can be judged in terms of whether they fit how a word is used. We might begin by thinking about what makes us persons. Consider this:

We are persons now. Either we will always be persons or we will cease being persons. If we will cease to be persons, what can end our personhood? If we will always be persons, how could that be?

Both options yield insight into personhood. Many people think that their personhood ends at death or if they were to go into a permanent coma: their body is (biologically) alive but the person is gone: that is why other people are sad. And if we continue to exist after the death of our bodies, as some religions maintain, what continues to exist? The person , perhaps even without a body, some think! Both responses suggest that personhood is defined by a rough and vague set of psychological or mental, rational and emotional characteristics: consciousness, knowledge, memories, and ways of communicating, all psychologically unified by a unique personality.

A second activity supports this understanding:

Make a list of things that are definitely not persons . Make a list of individuals who definitely are persons . Make a list of imaginary or fictional personified beings which, if existed, would be persons: these beings that fit or display the concept of person, even if they don’t exist. What explains the patterns of the lists?

Rocks, carrots, cups and dead gnats are clearly not persons. We are persons. Science fiction gives us ideas of personified beings: to give something the traits of a person is to indicate what the traits of persons are, so personified beings give insights into what it is to be a person. Even though the non-human characters from, say, Star Wars don’t exist, they fit the concept of person: we could befriend them, work with them, and so on, and we could only do that with persons. A common idea of God is that of an immaterial person who has exceptional power, knowledge, and goodness: you couldn’t pray to a rock and hope that rock would respond: you could only pray to a person. Are conscious and feeling animals, like chimpanzees, dolphins, cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, and cows more relevantly like us, as persons, or are they more like rocks and cabbages, non-persons? Conscious and feeling animals seem to be closer to persons than not. 13 So, this classificatory and explanatory activity further supports a psychological understanding of personhood: persons are, at root, conscious, aware and feeling beings.

Concerning abortion, early fetuses would not be persons on this account: they are not yet conscious or aware since their brains and nervous systems are either non-existent or insufficiently developed. Consciousness emerges in fetuses much later in pregnancy, likely after the first trimester or a bit beyond. This is after when most abortions occur. Most abortions, then, do not involve killing a person , since the fetus has not developed the characteristics for personhood. We will briefly discuss later abortions, that potentially affect fetuses who are persons or close to it, below.

It is perhaps worthwhile to notice though that if someone believed that fetuses are persons and thought this makes abortion wrong, it’s unclear how they could coherently believe that a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest could permissibly be ended by an abortion. Some who oppose abortion argue that, since you are a person, it would be wrong to kill you now even if you were conceived because of a rape, and so it’s wrong to kill any fetus who is a person, even if they exist because of a rape: whether someone is a person or not doesn’t depend on their origins: it would make no sense to think that, for two otherwise identical fetuses, one is a person but the other isn’t, because that one was conceived by rape. Therefore, those who accept a “personhood argument” against abortion, yet think that abortions in cases of rape are acceptable, seem to have an inconsistent view.

5.1.4 Fetuses are potential persons

If fetuses aren’t persons, they are at least potential persons, meaning they could and would become persons. This is true. This, however, doesn’t mean that they currently have the rights of persons because, in general, potential things of a kind don’t have the rights of actual things of that kind : potential doctors, lawyers, judges, presidents, voters, veterans, adults, parents, spouses, graduates, moral reasoners and more don’t have the rights of actual individuals of those kinds.

Some respond that potential gives the right to at least try to become something. But that trying sometimes involves the cooperation of others: if your friend is a potential medical student, but only if you tutor her for many hours a day, are you obligated to tutor her? If my child is a potential NASCAR champion, am I obligated to buy her a race car to practice? ‘No’ to both and so it is unclear that a pregnant woman would be obligated to provide what’s necessary to bring about a fetus’s potential. (More on that below, concerning the what obligations the right to life imposes on others, in terms of obligations to assist other people.)

5.1.5 Abortion prevents fetuses from experiencing their valuable futures

The argument against abortion that is likely most-discussed by philosophers comes from philosopher Don Marquis. 14 He argues that it is wrong to kill us, typical adults and children, because it deprives us from experiencing our (expected to be) valuable futures, which is a great loss to us . He argues that since fetuses also have valuable futures (“futures like ours” he calls them), they are also wrong to kill. His argument has much to recommend it, but there are reasons to doubt it as well.

First, fetuses don’t seem to have futures like our futures , since—as they are pre-conscious—they are entirely psychologically disconnected from any future experiences: there is no (even broken) chain of experiences from the fetus to that future person’s experiences. Babies are, at least, aware of the current moment, which leads to the next moment; children and adults think about and plan for their futures, but fetuses cannot do these things, being completely unconscious and without a mind.

Second, this fact might even mean that the early fetus doesn’t literally have a future: if your future couldn’t include you being a merely physical, non-conscious object (e.g., you couldn’t be a corpse: if there’s a corpse, you are gone), then non-conscious physical objects, like a fetus, couldn’t literally be a future person. 15 If this is correct, early fetuses don’t even have futures, much less futures like ours. Something would have a future, like ours, only when there is someone there to be psychologically connected to that future: that someone arrives later in pregnancy, after when most abortions occur.

A third objection is more abstract and depends on the “metaphysics” of objects. It begins with the observation that there are single objects with parts with space between them . Indeed almost every object is like this, if you could look close enough: it’s not just single dinette sets, since there is literally some space between the parts of most physical objects. From this, it follows that there seem to be single objects such as an-egg-and-the-sperm-that-would-fertilize-it . And these would also seem to have a future of value, given how Marquis describes this concept. (It should be made clear that sperm and eggs alone do not have futures of value, and Marquis does not claim they do: this is not the objection here). The problem is that contraception, even by abstinence , prevents that thing’s future of value from materializing, and so seems to be wrong when we use Marquis’s reasoning. Since contraception is not wrong, but his general premise suggests that it is , it seems that preventing something from experiencing its valuable future isn’t always wrong and so Marquis’s argument appears to be unsound. 16

In sum, these are some of the most influential arguments against abortion. Our discussion was brief, but these arguments do not appear to be successful: they do not show that abortion is wrong, much less make it clear and obvious that abortion is wrong.

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Persuasive Essay About Abortion

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Are you about to write a persuasive essay on abortion but wondering how to begin?

Writing an effective persuasive essay on the topic of abortion can be a difficult task for many students. 

It is important to understand both sides of the issue and form an argument based on facts and logical reasoning. This requires research and understanding, which takes time and effort.

In this blog, we will provide you with some easy steps to craft a persuasive essay about abortion that is compelling and convincing. Moreover, we have included some example essays and interesting facts to read and get inspired by. 

So let's start!

• 1. How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?
• 2. Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples
• 3. Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion
• 4. Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics
• 5. Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments. 

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing. 

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument. 

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both? 

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

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Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument. 

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay. 

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

• Should abortion be legal in the United States?
• Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
• What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
• Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
• What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
• How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
• Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
• Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
• Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
• How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values? 

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you. 

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

• According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
• The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
• Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
• In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
• Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
• In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
• A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
• According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing. 

Need the services of a professional essay writing service ? We've got your back!

MyPerfectWords.com is a persuasive essay writing service that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Keep reading

Where the Future of Abortion Access Lies

Donald Trump recently tried to push responsibility onto the states, whose approaches continue to vary widely.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

To win over more voters on the issue of abortion, Donald Trump has tried to push responsibility onto the states—whose varied approaches, even just in recent weeks, demonstrate the uncertain future of abortion access.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic :

• Matt Gaetz is winning.
• A child’s-eye view of 1970s debauchery
• Larry David learned nothing, and neither did we.

A Question for the States

Donald Trump has a history of flip-flopping on abortion. On Monday, he released a video in which he claimed credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade before suggesting that abortion access should be left up to the states. He did not weigh in on whether he would support outlawing abortion on the federal level—a ban he’d favored during his 2016 campaign and first term. Then, pressed by reporters in Georgia yesterday , he said that, if elected, he wouldn’t sign a nationwide ban.

Trump seems to be responding to the political toxicity of harsh abortion restrictions, likely softening his current stance to win over more moderate and swing-state voters. Most Americans say in polling that they support legal access to abortion in some form, with certain limits, so his statements this week should be viewed not as some kind of fundamental shift, my colleague Elaine Godfrey advised, but as a purely political play.

“He knows which way the political winds are blowing, and they’re against the pro-life camp at this point,” she told me. Trump waited until after the Republican primaries to announce his stance, she explained, because he didn’t want to lose votes from social conservatives. “Now that he’s the presumptive nominee, he can afford to piss off a few anti-abortion people—in the pursuit of winning over moderates in a general” election, she said.

The fall of Roe has been steadily remaking America’s political landscape since 2022, energizing Democratic voters and turning swing areas blue. Seizing on the issue, the Biden campaign has released a series of emotionally wrenching ads telling the stories of American women who were denied access to abortions. One video , released on Monday, features a woman who developed sepsis after a miscarriage for which she was denied an abortion in Texas, where the procedure is banned in most instances. She may not be able to have another child as a result of the infection, and wept as the message “Donald Trump did this” appeared on the screen.

Abortion will shape the 2024 presidential election—and its outcome will determine access to reproductive health care across the country. Biden has promised to restore federal abortion rights if he wins, but such a vow faces massive challenges in today’s political landscape, including legal hurdles and right-wing objections. His success will not be guaranteed—and the measures he has tried to introduce during his current term have suffered from a fractured Congress.

Trump, for his part, has taken policy advice in the past from a group of anti-abortion activists and attorneys, and Elaine reminded me that they will seek to influence his policy decisions if he wins. A major focus of some anti-abortion activists’ efforts, as Elaine has written , would be to revive the Comstock Act, a mostly dormant law that prohibited the shipment of objects used for terminating or preventing pregnancies, effectively criminalizing abortion everywhere. “The idea seems to be that Trump is so uninterested in the technical details of abortion-related matters that he’ll rely on this trusty circle of advisers to shape policy,” she wrote earlier this year. (He privately signaled in February that he supported the idea of a national 16-week ban—in part because he reportedly liked how the even number sounded.)

For the past two years, the issue of abortion access has largely been left up to the states. Americans now face a wide range of reproductive-health restrictions depending on where they live. By last summer, some 25 million women were living in states where abortions had become harder to get. Fourteen states , largely conservative strongholds in the South and West, currently ban abortion in almost all circumstances, and another seven states restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the limit set by Roe .

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a particularly restrictive law from the Civil War era—before women could vote—could be reinstated. The law bans nearly all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and providing an abortion would be a felony that could carry a two-to-five-year prison sentence. Earlier this month, Florida’s top court issued a ruling that allowed for a six-week abortion ban to soon take effect. The state’s ruling also requires any abortion pills to be dispensed in person, effectively outlawing mail orders of the medication.

The overturning of Roe has injected chaos into an established element of American life. Abortion-related ballot measures are expected in a swath of states this fall, and the future of abortion access remains unsettled on the federal level. Now abortion rights are an open question for the states to answer.

• A plan to outlaw abortion everywhere
• Anti-abortion conservatives’ first target if Trump returns

Today’s News

• A vote on a bill to reauthorize a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act failed to pass the House yesterday. Despite House Speaker Mike Johnson advocating for its passage, 19 Republicans voted against the measure.
• A senior U.S. military commander arrived in Israel amid fears that Iran will retaliate for a strike in Syria that killed several Iranian commanders earlier this month.
• O. J. Simpson, the retired football player acquitted of killing his former wife and her friend in 1995, died at age 76 from cancer.
• Time-Travel Thursdays : Faith Hill dug through The Atlantic ’s archival musings on dating. It turns out that romance in America has never been easy .
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What O. J. Simpson Means to Me

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

( From 2016 )

My reaction to O. J. Simpson’s arrest for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman was atypical. It was 1994. I was a young black man attending a historically black university in the majority-black city of Washington, D.C., with zero sympathy for Simpson, zero understanding of the sympathy he elicited from my people, and zero appreciation for the defense team’s claim that Simpson had been targeted because he was black … Two things, it seemed to me, could be true at once: Simpson was a serial abuser who killed his ex-wife, and the Los Angeles Police Department was a brutal army of occupation. So why was it that the latter seemed to be all that mattered, and what did it have to do with Simpson, who lived a life far beyond the embattled ghettos of L.A.?

Read the full article.

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PHI 240: Ethics of Fetal Development & Abortion (Daniels)

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Bertha Alvarez Manninen

Donald marquis, judith jarvis thomson, mary anne warren, essay:  the value of choice and the choice to value: expanding the discussion about fetal life within prochoice advocacy.

Essay:  Why Abortion is Immoral

Essay:  a defense of abortion, essay: on the moral and legal status of abortion.

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Essay on Abortion in English in 650 Words

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• Feb 5, 2024

Essay on Abortion: Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. The termination happens due to the removal of the embryo or fetus. 

The process of abortion can be natural as well as intentional. The intentional forces abortion involves a decision to end the pregnancy while when this process unfolds naturally without any external forces such as genetic abnormalities, maternal age, hormonal imbalances, or lifestyle, it is termed as miscarriage or spontaneous abortion. It is important to understand the difference between intentional abortion and miscarriage to explore reproductive health. 

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Table of Contents

• 1 Types of Abortion
• 2 Law in India for Abortion
• 3.1 1. Comprehensive Sex Education 
• 3.2 2. Access to Contraceptives
• 3.3 3. Support System for Pregnant Women 

Also Read: 3-Minute Speech on Motherhood and Education

Types of Abortion

Abortion procedures can be classified into two main types, Medical abortion and Surgical abortion. Medical abortion involves the termination of pregnancy using medications, such as the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. This medication method is generally effective within nine weeks of pregnancy and does not involve any penetration or incision of the body or the insertion of instruments into the body. 

On the other hand, surgical abortion involves a physical procedure to remove the pregnancy. The common surgical abortion method includes aspiration (suction) abortion, dilation and curettage (D&C), and dilation and evacuation (D&E) also called vacuum aspiration.

Law in India for Abortion

Laws of abortion play a vital role in the complexities of reproductive health. These laws aim to safeguard the well-being of women by ensuring that the abortion procedures are conducted under safe and medically supervised conditions.

In India, the legal framework for governing abortion primarily comes under the guidance of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act. The act was enacted in the year 1971 and aimed to liberalize the voluntary absorption largely decriminalized Section 312 of the IPC. To have safe and legal abortion services in India The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Regulations,2003 were issued under the MTP Act. 

Further in the year 2021, certain amendments were passed for safe abortion services in case of failures of contraceptive failures, increase in gestation limit to 24 weeks, and the opinion of one abortion service provider up to 20 weeks of gestation. Moreover, the amendment also supported abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy. The amendment acknowledges 7 specific circumstances to the MTP Act where a female can go for an abortion and those include Minor pregnancies, rape survivors, women with mental and physical disabilities, and more. 

Alternative and Support of Abortion

Some alternative measures that will help to raise awareness about abortion are as follows:

1. Comprehensive Sex Education 

The physical experience of abortion for women can be hazardous too, therefore, to provide an alternative it is necessary that comprehensive sex education should be provided in schools beyond subjects like Biology, healthy relationships, consent, and making responsible choices. Through this knowledge, students will not only be equipped with information but will also navigate relationships and avoid unintended pregnancies.

2. Access to Contraceptives

Easy access to contraceptives is another way to empower women to take charge of their reproductive health. Whether it is condoms, birth control pills, or any other methods of protection ensures to make responsible decisions and help in taking precautions against unplanned pregnancies.

3. Support System for Pregnant Women 

To support women with unwanted pregnancies it is important to create a supportive environment for them mentally as well as emotionally. The government can offer counselling services, and access to healthcare information, and can provide resources to help pregnant women make informed choices or decisions about their future for example parenting classes, legal guidance and financial assistance programs. 

In conclusion, we can say that the topic of abortion is complex as well as deep with emotions as well as with different perspectives. The ethical, religious, and legal debate on this sophisticated topic makes it challenging to find a common ground. Therefore it is necessary to have open and respectful communication, understanding empathy and healthcare options for the women. 

Also Read: National Safe Motherhood Day 2023

Ans. 1 Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. The termination happens due to the removal of the embryo or fetus. 

Ans. 2 As she was going through many health issues the family decided to go for an abortion. 

The causes of abortion in the first trimester can be emotional or psychological, maternal health concerns, unintended pregnancies, contraceptive failure and more.  

Ans. 4 The opposite of abortion is success, continuation, accomplishment, and achievement.

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Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with expertise in creating educational and informative content. She has a year of experience writing content for speeches, essays, NCERT, study abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and ananlysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particulary in education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs with related to her field to further expand her expertise. In personal life, she loves creative writing and aspire to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

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Arizona’s Zombie Abortion Ban Is Back. It’s Every State’s Future If Trump Wins.

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that its total abortion ban, a seemingly dead law dating back to 1864, is once again enforceable, despite more recent legislation that seemed to supersede it. The zombie ban makes virtually all abortions a felony, imposing a prison sentence of two to five years for any provider. There is no exception for rape or incest. The law was enacted before women could vote, and was long presumed to be permanently unenforceable. But the Arizona Supreme Court’s conservative majority, by a 4–2 margin, has now revived it. Republican governors appointed all seven justices on the bench, and the GOP recently expanded the court to entrench this far-right majority—which had no trouble finding that a ban enacted in an era in which women were chattel remains good law in 2024. As a result of this ruling, in 14 days almost every abortion in Arizona will be a crime, and nearly every clinic will close its doors. For all intents and purposes, it’s 1864 again for pregnant people in Arizona.

The decision should serve as a warning for the rest of the country, in light of ongoing efforts to revive the Comstock Act: In the hands of a far-right court, a dead, openly misogynistic, wildly unpopular abortion ban can spring back to life with a vengeance.

This zombie law was passed in 1864, long before Arizona was a state, and was codified in 1901, at which point it included a narrow exception to save the patient’s life. Much more recently, Arizona has passed less restrictive abortion laws, including a 15-week ban that appeared to wipe out more severe bans that preceded it. In late 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the two conflicting abortion laws in the state had to be reconciled, or “harmonized.” It maintained that abortion would remain legal through 15 weeks when provided by licensed physicians in compliance with the state’s other laws.

But on Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court, tasked with finally “harmonizing” Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban with the total ban dating back to hoop skirts, ruled that in the aftermath of Roe ’s reversal in Dobbs, the total ban takes precedence: The more recent 15-week restriction, wrote the majority, “does not create a right to, or otherwise provide independent statutory authority for, an abortion that repeals or restricts” the 1864 law, “but rather is predicated entirely on the existence of a federal constitutional right to an abortion since disclaimed” by Dobbs. In other words, in “harmonizing” the two laws, the harsher one wins out—even though, as the dissenters noted, the Legislature seemed to override this absolute ban when passing the recent 15-week limit. And so, starting in two weeks, even rape victims at the earliest stage of pregnancy may not obtain a legal abortion in Arizona.

Since Dobbs, nearly two dozen states have banned or limited access to the procedure. Arizona now joins those states with almost no exceptions , according to the Guttmacher Institute. As was the case with the far-right Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of that state’s constitution last week , the majority simply ignored any evidence that the original meaning and text of the recent law provided greater protections for reproductive freedom. Instead, the majority rejected the Legislature’s evident intent to supplant the Civil War–era law with a more lenient ban. As a consolation, it gestured toward the fact that Arizona voters will likely have an opportunity to enact a ballot initiative restoring reproductive rights. So Arizona now joins Florida as a state in which the high court takes away reproductive freedom with one hand while allowing it to go to a popular vote with the other. Abortion-rights groups say they have enough signatures to put the abortion amendment on the November ballot, creating a fundamental right to receive abortion care until viability. Unlike Florida, where amendments need 60 percent approval to pass, Arizona allows amendments to take effect with simple majority support. (Note, as well, that two justices in the majority on Tuesday have retention elections in November; if ousted, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs can replace them with progressives.)

In an election year in which winning the state of Arizona is an absolutely essential factor for the GOP, the abortion dog continues to catch the electoral car in ways that can only hurt Donald Trump and the GOP extremists who seek to harm women’s health and equality. So long as voters are aware of the game as it’s being played and what the stakes will be, Republicans faces the potential for heaving losses. So these efforts to do that which is extraordinarily unpopular must happen via subterfuge, wink-wink nudge-nudge public statements about states’ rights and not taking a national position on abortion, while the courts and would-be Trump administration functionaries do all the quiet dirty work. The self-evident tension between the massive public rebuke of Dobbs —in the form of state ballot initiatives and referenda , local special elections , and state Supreme Court races —and the unabating efforts by rogue legislatures and fringe Supreme Courts to roll back abortion rights, was in evidence with Donald Trump’s refusal to state a coherent position on abortion on Monday : Turning back the clock for women is a demonstrably losing issue at the ballot box. And when candidate Trump says he wants to return the issue of abortion to the states, what he is really saying is that Arizona is free to return the issue to the time before doctors understood the value of hand-washing . (Also, why would anyone take his word on anything, ever?)

What happened in Alabama in February , in Florida last week, and in Arizona on Tuesday makes it clear that returning the reproductive freedom landscape to the Victorian age requires subverting whatever happens in elections. That’s why this massive rollback will be achieved by antidemocratic measures, including promises to breathe new life into the Comstock Act, and revanchist theocratic decisions from courts attempting to do away with IVF and rape exceptions in the name of fetal and embryonic personhood .

Comstock, in particular, is an instructive comparison here. That 1873 law, read expansively, bans all abortions , including both medication and in-clinic procedures. Indeed, far-right lawyers are at the Supreme Court trying to weaponize it against abortion pills right now. Trump’s top lawyers, including Jonathan Mitchell, have said that they plan to use Comstock as a nationwide ban on abortion if Trump regains office. They tell us that they intend to stay quiet about this scheme until after the election, at which point they will prepare for an executive order accompanied by prosecutions and regulations that make abortion a federal felony in all 50 states. The plot is similar to what just happened in Arizona: Republicans enacted a seemingly moderate 15-week ban, only to stand by and watch as their colleagues on a GOP-packed court resuscitated a total ban passed during the Civil War. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes—who beat her anti-abortion opponent in 2022 by 280 votes—has said she won’t prosecute violations of the law. But GOP county attorneys have rejected Mayes’ efforts to shield doctors and may well seek to charge any providers that stay open, throwing access into immediate jeopardy.

The next time someone tells you they really worry about abortion rights, but that President Biden is just too old , please gently remind them that Joe Biden is not, in fact 160. That is the age of the law that will soon be sending abortion providers to prison in Arizona if they attempt to assist a victim of rape or incest. If edgy modernity is truly your thing, be afraid of Republican judges who are at war with modernity itself; they will gladly welcome the assistance of pro-choice voters whose apathy facilitates the rollback of women’s equal citizenship. And it’s now abundantly clear that we’re not rolling back the tape to the 1970s or to the 1920s. The project is to set your clocks back to the time when women didn’t even matter enough to have a vote.

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Arizona Republicans Splinter Over Repeal of 1864 Abortion Ban

The State Senate introduced a bill to repeal a near-total abortion ban dating back to the Civil War, while the House blocked an effort to do so.

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By Elizabeth Dias and Kellen Browning

Elizabeth Dias reported from inside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, and Kellen Browning from San Francisco.

The two chambers of Arizona’s State Legislature diverged sharply on Wednesday over whether to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, capping a chaotic day as legislators and activists sparred over the fate of the Civil War-era ban.

Only hours after Republicans in the State House scuttled another effort to repeal the ban, which was upheld by a State Supreme Court ruling last week, a handful of Republicans in the State Senate sided with Democrats and allowed them to introduce a bill to repeal it.

It will be at least a week before the Senate can vote on the bill, but the matter could be a moot point unless Democrats in the House find a way to get a bill passed there.

The House Republican leadership shows no signs of relenting, despite pressure from prominent Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, to toss the ban that many voters viewed as extreme and archaic.

“The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and reaffirmed by the Legislature several times,” House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican, said as he blocked an effort to vote on the repeal.

In an interview after the Senate advanced the repeal bill, Mr. Toma refused to bow to any outside pressure to change his mind, even from the highest ranks of his own party. He did not see a clear future for that bill, should it arrive in the House, and suggested he would work to prevent it from coming forward for a vote.

“At the end of the day, I don’t see how that is different from the current situation,” he said. “I will be consistent. No bill moves in this chamber without the speaker assigning it.”

Republicans narrowly control both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, but foresaw a grave political threat in backing a measure widely seen as out of touch with voters. The court ruling last week that upheld the ban infuriated supporters of abortion rights, exhilarated abortion opponents and set off a political firestorm in Arizona.

Repealing the law, which allows only an exception to save the life of the mother, and says doctors prosecuted under the law could face fines and prison terms of two to five years, would revert Arizona to a 15-week abortion ban. The 1864 law had sat dormant for decades, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade two years ago set the stage for the State Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate it last week.

Republicans initially resisted Democrats’ attempts to repeal the law last week. But Mr. Trump and Kari Lake, the Senate candidate and close Trump ally, said the court had overreached and urged the Legislature to act quickly. Ms. Lake, facing a highly competitive race in November, dialed lawmakers herself and asked how she could help with the repeal effort.

On Wednesday, it appeared as though their cajoling might have paid off, to a degree. Democrats signaled that they were optimistic of having enough Republican support to secure a majority in the House and send the repeal bill to the Senate.

But when one Democrat rose to bring forward her bill to repeal the ban, Republicans successfully prevented a vote on procedural grounds.

“The fact that we will not even entertain a motion to allow those who have been raped or pregnant by incest to be able to have an abortion is extremely, extremely disappointing,” State Representative Alma Hernandez, a Democrat, said.

Moments later, the chairman gaveled the House into recess.

“Today was a nice surprise that the House did not have the votes,” said Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative group that opposes abortion.

On Wednesday afternoon, on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate, three Republicans broke with the rest of their party to stop the chamber from adjourning. Two of them — T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick — voted to allow the repeal to be introduced.

In the House, the dynamic reflected the broader one at the heart of the abortion debate. Anti-abortion activists, often conservative Christians, have become a force in many Republican-controlled statehouses, giving them outsize influence compared to abortion rights supporters, whose views align with more voters on the issue.

Before the session began on Wednesday morning, the House gallery filled early, largely with anti-abortion supporters who came early at the direction of activist groups to oppose the repeal effort.

At one point, most of the attendees in the balcony stood and extended their hands toward the House floor below, and prayed. “Deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power,” they declared loudly.

Ka’rin Royster, an Arizona Republican Party precinct committeeman, said she believed life begins at conception. “I’m here, before representing the people in my precinct, to represent Jesus Christ,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be picture-perfect for people to get pregnant.”

Supporters of abortion rights were largely relegated to the overflow, as seats in the gallery were already taken. Rolande Baker, 72, left Tucson at 6:30 a.m. with three fellow abortion rights supporters to make sure she got a seat. She remembered having an abortion when she was 19, and had to drive with her boyfriend to New York from Indiana, where the procedure was not yet legal.

After Republicans succeeded in blocking a vote, she was furious.

“Why won’t these cowards allow the vote to come to the floor?” Ms. Baker asked. “What are they afraid of, that it might just pass? That Arizona just might get ourselves out of the year 1864? Before the end of the Civil War? Before women had a right to vote?”

In the gallery after the vote, Melinda Iyer, 49, of Phoenix, was outraged at the use of procedure to prevent the repeal vote. “This focus on rules and decorum when women do not have basic control over their own bodies is an extreme affront to democracy,” she said.

Democrats’ immediate attempts to repeal the ban failed last week as well. A Republican member of the House had sided with Democrats and put forward a measure to repeal it, but G.O.P. leadership adjourned.

As a second attempt at a repeal loomed this week, both parties scrambled to count votes and game out legislative strategies. Activists and lobbyists jockeyed behind the scenes to sway or hold the handful of Republican lawmakers whose actions could determine the law’s fate.

Democrats gained a new House member on Tuesday, when Junelle Cavero was appointed to fill a vacancy for a Democrat who resigned in April. She arrived in time for the repeal fight on the floor. Accounting for her vote, Republicans controlled the House 31 to 29.

Ms. Lake, in a reversal from her praise of the near-total ban two years ago when she was running for governor, made calls last week to lawmakers, urging them to revert to the 15-week ban that was in effect in Arizona. Two House members facing competitive re-election efforts were quick to criticize the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling, and several Republican legislators also signaled they might side with Democrats to repeal the law.

The about-face from Republicans reflected just how politically damaging the issue of abortion has become for them, even in traditionally conservative states, in the years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a constitutional right to abortion.

It has also highlighted divisions among Republicans on abortion policy. Anti-abortion groups and conservative organizations pushed Republicans to keep the law in place.

“This is being shoved through without any public input. It’s not an acceptable way to govern,” said Merissa Hamilton, president of EZAZ, a grass-roots conservative group that urged the legislature’s Republican leaders to punish members who vote to quickly pass the repeal. “It’s just a political stunt.”

Even if the ban remains on the books, voters will likely have their own chance to repeal it this fall. Abortion rights advocates have been gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion access up until “fetal viability” in the state’s constitution.

Jack Healy contributed reporting.

Elizabeth Dias is The Times’s national religion correspondent, covering faith, politics and culture. More about Elizabeth Dias

Kellen Browning is a Times reporter covering the 2024 election, with a focus on the swing states of Nevada and Arizona. More about Kellen Browning