Abortion During The 1920’s

3 Pages 704 Words

Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. Abortion has created the opportunity for women to abort unwanted, unexpected pregnancies, yet has created an exceedingly large amount of controversy. Medically trained doctors performing the abortion helps protect the health of those women obtaining abortions, but also upsets many people. Abortion has been legal since 1973, but before then, abortion was a very common, yet dangerous procedure; women often times turned to dangerous, illegal methods to terminate their pregnancy. Today abortion is common and safe procedure, and although it was common during the 1920’s, it was not always safe.
Abortion, although illegal, was very popular. During the 1920’s many forms of birth control were not available for women. Unexpected pregnancies were common because of this and women were quick to turn to any alternative, whether it was dangerous or not. Surveys showed that during the 1920’s 10 to 20 percent of women had had an abortion (Reagan). During the 1920’s, abortion was most popular with middle to upper class women (“Abortion Facts”). The wealthy received abortions from actual doctors, despite the laws in effect (Johnson Lewis, Jone). However, all social classes were not as lucky.
Middle class women were not as fortunate. During the 1920’s, women who did not have as much money usually made desperate decisions without thinking of fatal consequences. During the 1920’s some 15,000 women a year died from abortions (“Abortion Facts”). Illegal abortion created an impact on the women society. Even though some abortion procedures were considered to be safer than others, its effects were still negative. Women used all sorts of alternatives rather than having the baby.
During the 1920’s there were illegal abortionists who performed these procedures, but only the wealthy were able to afford s...