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The abortion laws in the united states essay
The abortion laws in the united states essay
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C. Comparison to Other Statutes Kansas abortion laws in some ways were more strict than other states, but in other ways were less harsh. As previously mentioned, Section 39 prohibited abortion at all points in a pregnancy and not just after the fetus had quickened. This stands in stark contrast to many other states, which only prohibited abortion after the fetus had quickened, which is similar to Section 10 of the Kansas statutes. Therefore, Kansas’s prohibition on abortion extended further than many states. But, compared to many states, Kansas’s statues provided relatively weaker penalties for performing an abortion. Section 10, as manslaughter in the second degree, carried a punishment of imprisonment for between three to five years. …show more content…
Prosecutions Prosecutions for abortions were not common in Kansas after statehood. Between 1855 to 1900, this author was able to find ten different reported prosecutions from either newspaper articles or published opinions. In eight of these cases, a defendant was the alleged father of the fetus, while in four of these cases, a defendant was a doctor allegedly hired to perform an abortion. 1. The 1869 prosecution of Jesse Lewis for an abortion performed on Lilly-Belle Burns. 2. The 1869 prosecution of a man named Tillman for an abortion performed on his daughter. 3. The 1870 prosecution of Archibald Trammell and his two sons for an abortion performed on Trammell’s daughter. 4. The 1872 prosecution of Dr. Jno. S. Hidden for an abortion performed on Ellen …show more content…
The first way was that the woman died during the procedure. During this time, abortions commonly lead to the woman dying. For example, in 1895, A.R. Wilcox and Dr. R.M. Young conspired to perform an abortion on Wilcox’s wife, Carrie Wilcox. According to Carrie’s mother, Carrie was not a willing party and told her mother that her husband was pressuring her into getting the procedure. Dr. Young first gave Carrie some type of drug which was unsuccessful. Dr. Young then used an instrument to perform an intrusive abortion, which wounded Carrie and ultimately lead to her death. Abortion charges were then brought against both the husband and Dr. Young. Another example, in 1872, involves the prosecution of Dr. John S. Hidden after he allegedly performed an abortion on a local woman, who died during the
Kenneth Edelin was a 35 year old third year medical resident at the Boston City Hospital. This hospital was known for many poor coming into it. This was also a place for research. By this time research was still being conducted on fetuses and embryos. When a patient came to the hospital for an abortion she also signed a waiver for them to test on her. They called her “Alice Roe” and she was only 17 years old but had the consent of her mother to proceed with the abortion.This patient was estimated by the supervisor over the residents, Hugh Holtrop, to be about twenty-two weeks pregnant but the other residents Enrique Giminez and Steve Teich disagreed. They estimated that she was about twenty-four weeks pregnant. Edlein was put in charge of doing the
Oddly, physicians brought abortion into the public’s eye. These physicians formed a pro-life movement arguing the moral knowledge that the public didn’t seem to have (12, Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood p. 000). According to the source, women didn’t understand that the embryo is a living being. With their lack of knowledge about things, they came “murderesses” and the only way this could be solved was to outlaw abortion. They kept the idea that abortion was murder, but, at the same time, they also said that only they could decide when an abortion should occur. With their accomplishment, in 1900, every state had a law that stated that abortion is illegal except for when the mother’s life is in danger. But the weakness of this was that the law didn’t specifically define the danger a mother should be in.
The Queen vs. Davis case concerns the murder trial of Arthur Paul Davis and Alice Davis that occurred in 1875. In it, they were tried and convicted of murder for conducting an abortion; the killing of a fetus and subsequently causing death of the victims, Catherine Laing and Jane Vaughn Gilmour. This essay will examine the historical context of the case, what the trial reveals about the nature of women’s lives in Toronto during the 1870s as subordinate women who are deemed as caretakers and how women managed to end unwanted pregnancies. During the late 19th century ending an unwanted pregnancy was an illegal offence because it was considered unethical to kill a fetus. Women were not able to access safer alternatives such as contraception, as it was an offence to sell or advertise them at that time. Women did not claim they wanted an abortion directly, but rather that they wanted to be fixed of their problem. They did not feel guilty as they thought it was acceptable to induce abortion before the 3rd month of pregnancy or quickening of it, which under the English common law, it was not wrongful to procure an abortion prior to the feeling any movement of the fetus. Doing an Abortion was a private matter but nonetheless a criminal offence. Beginning in the early 19th century, laws were passed to support the prohibition of abortions; these then continued on to the revision and creation of the 1892 criminal code for abortion.
The topic of my paper is abortion. In Judith Jarvis Thomson's paper, “A Defense of Abortion,” she presented a typical anti-abortion argument and tried to prove it false. I believe there is good reason to agree that the argument is sound and Thompson's criticisms of it are false.
Abortions have been performed for thousands of years. In the 1800s abortions began to be outlawed. The reasons for anti-abortion laws varied for each state. Some people did not want the world to be dominated by newly arrived immigrants. Abortion in the 1800s were very unsafe due to the fact that the doctors had a limited educations and hospitals were not common. The outlawing of abortions from 1880 to 1973 led to many woman attempting illgeal abortions. (add author). Almost two hundred women died from attempting illegal abortions in 1965. Between two hundred thousand and one million illegal abortions were given each year. In states where local laws restrict the availability of abortion, women tend to have the lowest level of education and income. Additionally, in those states, less money goes toawrds education, welfare, fostercare programs, and adoption services. (Anderson, 5).
who had sought an abortion would at least be liable to criminal to criminal punishment for attempted murder or for aiding and abetting the physician who performed the deed.
Until the mid 1800s, abortion was unrestricted and unregulated in the United States. The justifications for criminalizing it varied from state to state. One big reason was population control, which addressed fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly ...
The facts of this case show that Roe, who at the time was a single woman, decided to challenge the State of Texas’s abortions laws. The law in that state stated that it was a felony to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 1973). At the time many illegal abortions were being performed in back alleys and in very unsanitary conditions. Therefore, some states began to loosen up on abortion restrictions, in which some women found it easy to travel to another state where the abortion laws were less restrictive and they could find a doctor was willing to endorse the medical requirement for an abortion. Unfortunately, less fortunate or poor women could seldom travel outside their own state to get the treatment, which started to raise questions of fairness. Also, many of the laws were vague; therefore many doctors really didn’t know whether they were committing ...
In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma L. McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. She returned to Dallas, Texas, where friends advised her to assert falsely that she had been raped in order to obtain a legal abortion,with the understanding that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of rape and incest. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found that the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. So she was then referred to the following attorneys, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington. She would have the child before the decision was made. The constitutional issue involved with this case is as follows, the legality of a woman's right to have an abortion. This be reminded that an abortion is the deliberate termination of a
In 1900 a law was passed banning women from having an abortion. Before 1900, abortions were a common practice and usually performed by a midwife, but doctors saw this as a financial threat and pushed for a law making abortions illegal. From 1900 until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a women’s right to have an abortion, women who wanted to have an abortion did so secretly. These secret abortions were performed
Advocates of criminalization also stressed society’s obligation to halt the declining birthrate among white Americans. And many stressed the need to protect the sanctity of motherhood and the chastity of white women; abortion, after all, supported the separation of sexual intercourse from reproduction. For many physicians and others, all of these concerns where generally more trenchant in the nineteenth century than the issue of fetal life. (Solinger: 5).
There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible because birth is the most significant event for a fetus, and a woman’s autonomy should never be suspended.
In the Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper, “A Defense of Abortion”, the author argues that even though the fetus has a right to life, there are morally permissible reasons to have an abortion. Of course there are impermissible reasons to have an abortion, but she points out her reasoning why an abortion would be morally permissible. She believes that a woman should have control of her body and what is inside of her body. A person and a fetus’ right to life have a strong role in whether an abortion would be okay. Thomson continuously uses the story of a violinist to get the reader to understand her point of view.
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
Warren, Mary Anne , and Mappes and D. DeGrazia. "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion." Biomedical Ethics 4th (1996): 434-440. Print.