Chronography of Abortion
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modified 19/8/2021
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30/12/2020, Abortion was legalised in Argentina.
14/5/2019, The US State of Alabama passed very
restrictive abortion laws,
25/5/2018, Ireland
voted to legalise
abortion by a large majority of 66.4%. This left Northern Ireland as
rather an anomaly, with its strict anti-abortion laws, whilst abortion was now
legal in both Ireland and Great Britain. However the Democratic Unionist Party
of Northern Ireland, whose support Mrs Theresa May, British Conservative PM, needed
to remain in power, was like all other NI Parties, anti-abortion.
2007,
Portugal
legalised abortion.
2002,
Switzerland
decriminalised abortion.
7/3/2002, In a Referendum in Ireland, the legalisation of abortion was narrowly rejected.
10/3/1993, Dr David Gunn, gynaecologist,
was murdered by an anti-abortion campaigner.
25/4/1990. The UK Parliament reduced the time limit for abortion from 28 to 24 weeks. There were certain exceptions, such as
danger to the mother�s health.
3/4/1990,
In Belgium, King
Baudoin temporarily abdicated to allow the passing of a law legalising abortion, which he refused to sign
on principle.
30/4/1987,
In Britain, the Court of Appeal ruled
that a man could not prevent a woman who was carrying his child from having an
abortion.
17/10/1985, In Britain, the House of Lords voted to allow
doctors to prescribe contraceptives to girls aged under 16 without
parental consent, despite a campaign against this by Catholic
mother Mrs Victoria Gillick.
26/7/1983, Mrs Victoria
Gillick lost her case in the High Court to prevent
doctors prescribing contraceptives to girls under 16 without parental consent.
17/5/1981, In a
referendum, Italy
voted to legalise abortion.
20/6/1977, The US Supreme Court ruled that States were not required to fund elective abortions on Medicaid.
1975,
French anti-abortion laws were liberalised.
5/1974,
In Britain, family planning advice was available free on the NHS. Shadow Home
Secretary Sir
Keith Joseph caused controversy, and was even accused of
resurrecting WW2 eugenics, when he expressed concern that the highest birth
rate was amongst the poor and least educated.
22/1/1973, The US Supreme Court ruled, in Roe vs Wade;
a ruling that resulted in the liberalisation of
abortion laws, so women had the freedom to choose a private
abortion. Abortion was subsequently legalised in
France (1975) and Italy (1977). The actual case was between Henry Wade,
Dallas County District Attorney, and Norma
McCorvey; McCorvey�s name
was disguised as Jane Roe.
1/4/1972.
Hounslow
Borough Council began to offer free contraception on the rates.
There was no restriction on the type of contraception nor on the marital status
of the applicants; they only had to be aged 16 or over and resident in
Hounslow.
1971, Italy
legalised the sale of birth control information and contraceptives.
5/1969, Canada
legalised abortion and contraception.
27/4/1968. Abortion was legalised in Britain, as the 1967 Abortion Act became
Law. The Liberal MP David Steel had
introduced the Abortion Act to Parliament. In the 10 months 25/4/1968 to
25/2/1969, the UK had 28.859 abortions, and by July 1969 they were averaging
over 1,000 per week in England and Wales. The NHS paid for 60% of the cost of
an abortion.
1967,
France
repealed its 1920 law which forbade the sale of contraceptives. Earlier, in
1956, Dr
Marie-Andree Weill-Halle started the Mouvement Francais pour le Planning Familial. She also set up
technically illegal family planning clinics in France, to which the Government
turned a blind eye. The first such clinic opened in Grenoble in 1961 and by
1966 there were 200 such clinics across France. Contraceptives were (illegally)
imported from the UK by plain postage to clients.
27/10/1967, The UK�s Abortion Act received Royal Assent.
25/10/1967. UK Parliament passed the Abortion Act, decriminalising
abortion.
14/7/1967. Parliament in the UK voted to legalise
abortion. This was after a record 64 hour debate. The 1967 Abortion Act allowed for the legal
termination of pregnancy if two registered doctors believed that continuation
of the pregnancy could damage the physical or mental health of the woman, or of
members of her family, or where there was substantial risk of the baby being
born with physical or mental abnormalities. The normal time linit was the 24th
week of pregnancy, unless there was grave danger to the mother.
25/4/1967, Colorado became the first
US State to liberalise its abortion laws. Abortion was now permissible in the
case of rape or incest, where the woman�s physical or mental health was in
danger, or was likely to result in a child with severe mental or physical
issues. The abortion had to be performed in a licenced hospital with the
approval of three physicians.
19/2/1966. Lord Silkin�s Bill to legalise
abortion ran into difficulties in the House of Lords.
1964,
A dozen US States now had tax-funded birth-control programmes. These were
mainly in the soutern USA, where Catholic influence was weaker and Whites
desired to hold down higher Black birth rates. Overall the US hosted 450 birth
control clinics. In 1965 the US hosted 700 birth control clinics, with 33
States giving, or about to give, tax funding to birth control programmes.In
1965 Connecticut�s 1879 law prohibiting the sale of birth control devices was
ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
4/12/1961. The birth
control pill became available on the National Health Service.
30/1/1961. The contraceptive pill went on sale in Britain. It was called Conovid, see
18/10/1960.
18/10/1960, The first approved contraceptive pill,
called Enovid 10, went on sale in the USA; it was only available to married
couples. Catholics objected. See 30/1/1961.
9/5/1960, The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA)approved a birth control pill. By 1965 some 5 million US
wpomen were using the Pill.
18/8/1960.
The birth control
pill, the
world�s first oral contraceptive, was launched in America.
2/10/1958,
Marie Stopes,
promoter of
birth control, died (born 1880).
1955, Legalised abortion was restored in the
USSR, although both abortion and birth control were
discouraged.
5/10/1951,
The oral
contraceptive was patented
1948, Japan
legalised abortion, over concerns about continued
population growth; the population of Japan had risen from 64 million in 1930 to
almost 80 million in 1948.
1940, US President Roosevelt publically endorsed birth control.
1936, The 1920 legalisation of
abortion in the USSR was
reversed; abortion was now only permissible if the woman�s
life was in danger or the child was likely to have some certain specified
inherited disease.
1936, Ireland made it a felony to sell,
import or advertise any form of birth control.
28/1/1935. Iceland
became the first country to legalise abortion, on medical grounds, under Law no.38,
allowing abortion at up to 28 weeks if there was a threat to the mental or
physical health of the mother. Most
subsequent abortion laws followed this pattern. However in Ireland the import or sale of
contraceptives became illegal.
1930, Italy, under Mussolini, made abortion �a crime against the integrity and health of
the race�; however illegal abortions in Italy continued at more than
500,000 a year.
14/8/1930, The Church of
England grudgingly accepted birth control.
15/10/1927.
Britain�s Public Morals Committee attacked
the use of contraceptives for �causing poor hereditary
stock�.
1924, The practice
of birth control was endorsed by the New York Obstetrical Society, the New York Academy of
Medicine and the American Medical Association.
17/3/1921. First birth control clinic opened
in Holloway, London, by Marie Stopes.
1921,
Abortion was
made illegal in Argentina, except in cases of rape or where the
mnother�s life was at risk.
1920,
Abortion was
made illegal in France, because of
population losses suffered in World War One. However the law was widely flouted
and by 1970 there were 500,000 illegal abortions a year in France, with botched
operations causing some 500 deaths per year. Moreover, all publicity for
birth-control, and the dale of contraceptives, was also banned.
1920,
The American
Birth Control League was founded (see 10/9/1916).
1920, Abortion was legalised in the USSR.
16/10/1916, The first brth-control clinic outside The
Netherlands was opened at 46 Amboy Street,� Brooklyn, New York, by Margaret Sanger. She distributed leaflets in
English, Italian and Yiddish to advertise the clinic.She was arrested and
jailed for 30 days. After her release she founded the New York Birth Control League (see 1920) and began publishing Birth Control Review.
1878,
The world�s
first birth control clinic opened in Amsterdam by Dutch suffragist
leader Aletta Jacobs, aged 29. She was also the first female physician to
practice in The Netherlands.
1873,
In the US,
the Comstock Act authorised the
postal services to restrict dissemination of information about
contraception,even from doctors.
1872,
Germany
enacted a new law punishing abortion by up to 5 years in
prison.
1/11/1872, US Congress passed the Comstock Law,
prohibiting the transport or postage of any article intended to prevent
conception or to cause abortion. The law was named after New York
moralist Anthony
Comstock, aged 28, head of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.
1/10/1847, Annie Besant, social reformer
and theosophist, was born. With radical atheist Charles Bradlaugh, she promoted birth
control, for which she was prosecuted.
1830, Abortion was made a
statutory crime in the USA.
1814,
France made abortion
illegal except where the life of the mother was gravely threatened.
1803,
In Britain,
abortion, alrady an offence under Canon law, was made a statutory crime.
28/4/1780, The first
advertisement for an abortion clinic appeared on the
back page of London�s
Morning Post. The address was 23,
Fleet Street, London.
500 BCE, Abortion was commonly practised by the ancient Romans and Greeks,to the extent that the plant
used to induce it, silphium, became�
extinct (silphium was supposedly hard to cultivate, and animal grazing
also likely caused the end of the species).
1550 BCE, The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus comntained a recipe for
inducing abortion, as a form of birth control.
1700 BCE, Abortion in Mesopotamia was prohibited under the Hammurabi
Code.
3000 BCE, Chinese Emperor Shennong reputedly gave his
concubines mercury to induce abortions.