In the United States, abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s, forbidding abortion after the fourth month of pregnancy.
Through the efforts primarily of physicians, the American Medical Association, and legislators, most abortions in the US had been outlawed by 1900.
Illegal abortions were still frequent, though they became less frequent during the reign of the Comstock Law which essentially banned birth control information and devices.
Some early feminists, like Susan B. Anthony, wrote against abortion. They opposed abortion which at the time was an unsafe medical procedure for women, endangering their health and life. These feminists believed that only the achievement of women 's equality and freedom would end the need for abortion. (Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in The Revolution, "But where
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In the early part of the 2000-2010 decade, major conflict over abortion laws was over termination of late pregnancies, termed "partial birth abortions" by those who oppose them. Pro-choice advocates maintain that such abortions are to save the life or health of the mother or terminate pregnancies where the fetus cannot survive birth or cannot survive much after birth. Pro-life advocates maintain that the fetuses may be saved and that many of these abortions are done in cases that aren 't hopeless. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed Congress in 2003 and was signed by President George W.
Bush. The law was upheld in 2007 by the Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart.
In 2004, President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, permitting a second charge of murder -- covering the fetus -- if a pregnant woman is killed. The law specifically exempts mothers and doctors from being charged in any cases related to