From the beginning of the 20th century to the turbulent aftermath of the Second World War, America underwent a profound cultural shift marked by the resurgence of conservatism and traditional values alongside the struggle with corruption. San Francisco, a distinct city known for its vice and crime, embodied this cultural shift as depicted in Lisa Riggin’s narrative, “San Francisco’s Queen of Vice: The Strange Career of Abortionist Inez Brown Burns.” Inez Burns was a woman well-known for her illegal abortion network in San Francisco conducted through her Filmore Street clinic, overseeing thousands of abortions for women all along the West Coast. As a result of abortions prohibited by state and federal law, women had no choice but to receive …show more content…
However, the newly elected district attorney, Edmund Gerald “Pat” Brown, would attempt to rid the streets of San Francisco of its vice and police corruption. In America’s historically transformative period, the clashing lives and actions of Inez Burns and Pat Brown were deeply influenced by a symphony of conservative values, the redefinition of gender roles, and the fight against corruption defined in this narrative. Delving deeper into the shift to a more traditional America, Pat Brown’s election as the district attorney most likely resulted from his commitment to implementing conservative principles in his political rise. His conservative nature seemed to arise from his religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic, embodying the conservative nature of America’s ideals and customs. The narrative mentions Pat Brown selected a small group of men from the police department and district attorney’s office to plan and carry out a raid on the Filmore clinic, with most of these men being “Good Roman Catholics” that he knew Burns couldn’t bribe or pay …show more content…
Analyzing the success and failures of Inez Burns, she was successful in her endeavors running her illegal abortion clinic until her demise due to legal implications, societal exclusion, and imprisonment. Additionally, both her failures and successes were in defiance of the traditional gender expectations of the time. The narrative states, “Inez had acquired expensive tastes, but the unprecedented frivolity of the 1920s brought an increasing number of clients to fill her pockets and pay the bills.” (Riggin P. 488 - Amazon Kindle). This piece of text provides the reason for Burns’s success as an abortionist who capitalized on the changing societal landscape, where the women of this time gained more independence and autonomy over their actions, resulting in behaviors or activities such as premarital sex that required the demand for abortion services. Burns' failures began as her legal troubles caught up with her, as stated in the narrative where Burns had escaped prosecution on multiple occasions but later evidence from raids on her Filmore clinic and further investigation would result in her
Pagan writes a captivating story mingled with the challenges of the Eastern Shore legal system. This book gives a complete explanation backed up by research and similar cases as evidence of the ever-changing legal system. It should be a required reading for a history or law student.
Dorothy Wardell’s article titled “Margaret Sanger: Birth Control’s Successful Revolutionary” explains what inspired Sanger ideas on contraception and what problems she faced while working to change the notions and laws on Birth Control. The central argument presented by Wardell is that Sanger’s efforts led to privileges for women’s bodies and health centers providing methods for women to act on these privileges (Wardell, 736). Although Wardell is effective in supporting her argument, it would be stronger if she included some historical context and evidence of Sanger’s opinion in her own words found in a speech of hers and in Family Limitation. Wardell begins by addressing that “…a definitive biography and assessment has yet to be written.”,
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.
Noonan, John T, Jr. A Private Choice: Abortion in America in the Seventies. Collier Macmillan Publishers, London: 1979.
In the later half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, many states adopted laws against abortion because abortions were performed in unsanitary conditions, which made the operation dangerous for women. Plus, society believed killing a possible life was immoral. However, as time progressed and morals changed, people begin to question weather or not the government had the right to interfere with peoples’ carnal matters.
The Roaring Twenties were known as a time of economic boom, pop culture and social developments. This was a time when women began to break norms, they acted rebelliously such as wearing releveling clothing, smoking, and drinking. These women were known as “flappers” who wanted to change their roles in the 1920’s. Birth control activist, Margaret Sanger sought to change the world where women had access to a low cost, effective contraception pill. In “The Morality of Birth Control” Sanger battled opponents who claimed that contraception would cause women to become immoral. The author uses rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and fallacies to back up her claim while touching on issues in the church, advancements of women, and the source of disease in the world.
Orsi, Richard J., and John F. Burns. Taming The Elephant: Politics, Government, And Law In Pioneer California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. eBook (EBSCOhost). Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
"Background on Abortion." OnTheIssues.org - Candidates on the Issues. On The Issues.org. Web. 23 July 2011. .
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 ...
The debate of abortion continues to be a controversial problem in society and has been around for many decades. According to Jone Lewis, “In the United States, abortion laws began to appear in the 1820’s, forbidding abortion after the fourth month of pregnancy” (1). This indicates that the abortion controversy has been debated far back into American history. Beginning in the 1900’s, legalized abortion became a major controversy. In 1965, all fifty states in the United States banned abortion; however, that was only the beginning of the controversy that still rages today (Lewis 1). After abortion was officially banned in the United States, groups such as the National Abortion Rights Action League worked hard on a plan to once again legalize abortion in the United States (Lewis 1). It wasn’t until 1970 when the case of Roe (for abortion) v. Wade (against abortion) was brought...
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
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 ...
Abortion is arguably the most controversial topic in all the issues revolving around reproduction. Women of all different races, classes, and religions have been practicing abortion since before the colonial era in America. The laws pertaining to abortion have changed many times, adding and removing discrepancies and stipulations throughout many years, and still to this day. The views of abortion in society during different time periods have also changed and adapted. At the time of Sarah Grosvenor’s decision to abort, the laws pertaining to abortion did not make the act fully illegal. However in years after Grosvenor’s case abortion was outlawed. The law played a minor part in women’s decisions to have an abortion, however society, and gender played the most prominent role in the decision of abortion.
My Understanding of the Human Behaviour Theory: BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH Human conduct, how we act and how we react are all related to the theory of behaviourism, or the behaviourist approach. Behaviourism as a theory was first founded by John B. Watson and B.F Skinner who saw that all human behaviour is influenced and can be replaced by new, sometimes more appropriate behaviours. John B. Watson knew that by observing obvious behaviours, the reason for certain actions could be identified. This is where the term classical conditioning comes from, meaning of which is when specific influences create or bring on a certain response. B.F Skinner was the man who developed the theory of operant conditioning.
Millions of illegal abortions were done by the 1950s, and over a thousand women died each year as result. Moreover, millions of women who had illegal abortions were rushed to the emergency ward; some died of abdominal infection, and other, found themselves sterile and chronically ill. In 1969, 75% of the women who died from these abortions were either poor or of color. In the landmark case of Roe v. Wade (1973) the Supreme Court ruled that woman had the right of privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to obtain an abortion, yet, keeping in mind that, protecting the health of the woman and the potential life of the fetus is the main interest. As result of this decision, safe and unpainful abortion services were offered to many women. In addition, some health care centers provided counseling, women’s group offered free referral services, and, non-profit abortion facilities were created. Nevertheless, legalization was not enough to ensure that abortions will be available to all women, women of low income and of color still found themselves without safe and inexpensive abortions. Between the early 1980s, feminist health centers provided low-cost abortions, however, by the early 1990s, only 20% of these centers survived the harassment by the IRS and the competition of other