Abortion In The 1960's

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There was a time when abortion was simply part of life in the United States. People didn't scream about it in protest, and services were marketed openly.
Drugs to induce abortions were a booming business. They were advertised in newspapers and could be bought from pharmacists, from physicians and even through the mail. If drugs didn't work, women could visit practitioners for instrumental procedures.
The earliest efforts to govern abortions centered on concerns about poisoning, not morality, religion or politics. It was the mid-19th century, long before abortion became the hot-button issue it is now.
All of this is according to historian Leslie Reagan, whose 1996 book on abortion history in the United States is considered one of the most comprehensive …show more content…
The Depression was a perfect example.
Specialists passed out business cards and opened up clinics, Reagan explained, and nobody bothered them. In that era, abortion wasn't seen as a women's issue, it was an economic issue.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Inspired by the civil rights and anti-war movements, the women's liberation movement gained steam in the 1960s -- and reproductive rights took center stage.
Women with means had been able to get abortions by leaving the country or paying a physician in the U.S. a large fee for the procedure. Others weren't so lucky. They sought out back-alley procedures or took matters in their own hands: inserting knitting needles and coat hangers into their vaginas, drinking chemicals or douching with lye. These methods resulted in medical emergencies and, in some cases, death.
Some groups sprouted to help prevent such outcomes.
In the late 1960s, before abortion was legalized again in the United States, concerned pastors and rabbis set up the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion to help women find safe illegal
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