Following up on another search, I came across this brief chronology and thought I'd bring it over-- it can be seen in its entirety at
hopeclinic.com
I have highlighted a couple of these that I found interesting. The Church's role is especially intriguing.
2600 BC – First recorded recipe for an abortion producing drug.
1850 BC – Egyptians record recipe for contraceptive pessaries, one made from crocodile dung.
4th Century AD – St. Augustine lays down Catholic dogma sanctioning abortion up to 80 days for female fetus and up to 40 days for male fetus.
13th Century AD - St. Thomas Aquinas states Catholic dogma justifying sexual intercourse only for procreation.
1564 AD - Italian anatomist, Fallopius, discoverer of Fallopian tubes, publicizes condoms as anti-venereal disease devices.
1588 – Pope Sixtus forbids all abortions
1591 - Pope Gregory XIV rescinds Pope Sixtus’ edict against abortion
1803 - Great Britain makes abortion a misdemeanor
1821 – Connecticut outlaws abortion after quickening, early abortions are legal
1860’s – All states pass comprehensive, criminal abortion laws. Most remain until 1973.
1869 – Pope Pius IX forbids all abortions in exchange for France’s Napoleon III acknowledging papal infallibility. France’s population experienced a sharp decrease over the previous 60 years.
1873 – Federal Comstock laws enacted prohibiting mailing or distribution of information on birth control and abortion
1879 – Margaret Higgins Sanger is born. She led the movement for birth control in the U.S.
1882 – First "modern" birth control clinic in the world opens in Holland, sponsored by trade unions.
1913 – Margaret Sanger arrested for violation of Comstock laws because of feminist birth control columns in, The Woman Rebel.
1916 - Margaret Sanger & her sister, Ethel Byrne jailed for dispensing contraceptive information at first American birth control clinic in Brooklyn, NY.
1924 – First scientific confirmation of women’s ovulatory and fertility cycle.
1930 – Pope Pius XI affirms Catholic dogma that every act of sexual intercourse is a sin unless performed with a reproductive intent.
1942 – Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Federation of America becomes Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
1956 – Dr. John Rock (a Catholic) and others developed the birth control pill. Their research was funded by two women:
1963 – Pope Paul IV issues encyclical Humanae Vitae condemning artificial birth control.
1965 – In Griswold v. Connecticut, U.S. Supreme Court rules Connecticut’s law prohibiting birth control for married couples violates a newly defined right of marital privacy.
1967 – Then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California (who became a very anti-choice president) signs the most liberal abortion law of the times allowing freedom of choice during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
1970 – Hawaii, Alaska, and New York repeal criminal abortion laws allowing abortion in the first trimester.
1972 – Supreme Court finds the right to privacy of unmarried persons violated by Massachusetts law against distribution of contraceptives in Eisenstadt v Baird. Justice Brennan in the majority opinion states that all Americans have a right to bear and beget children free from government interference.
Monday Morning, January 22nd, 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision, hands down Roe v Wade making a 1st trimester abortion a private decision between a woman & her physician. In the 2nd trimester states can put limitations on abortion with regard to the health of the pregnant woman. In the 3rd trimester states can make abortion illegal except to save the life of the woman. |
