How Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Came About
Abortion has long been a practice in the United States, whether legally or not. In fact, “until the nineteenth century, abortions were permitted in the United States” (Munson 78). So why and how did they became so widely criticized to the point where they were ruled illegal? In the 1800’s, physicians were regarded much differently than they are now, sharing a similar status as healers who operated on strange methods focused on faith and belief. Because of this, “doctors made abortion an issues during the nineteenth century as a platform for asserting their monopoly on scientific medical knowledge” (Munson 78). Thus, the moral panic concerning abortions was largely crafted in order to raise the social class of doctors.
The origins of this moral panic sparked decades of conflict within America, eventually polarizing citizens into either a “pro-life” or a “pro-choice” party. By the 1950’s, “the rationale for most abortions-even legal ones-involved the pregnant woman’s psychological or emotional health,” sparking more justification for the legalization of abortion (Munson 79). Slowly, abortion was becoming more and more of a moral panic in America. As medical knowledge and technology improved, the illegality of abortion came more into question with the public. Once again, elite physicians and lawyers led the charge to spearhead this notion of allowing more legal abortions, leading to harsher standards on performing abortions instituted by the American Law Institute in 1959 (Munson 80).
It wasn’t until Sherri Finkbine fled to Sweden in order to protect her child from birth defects that abortion began to “emerge as a public, moral issue” (Munson 82). After more medical knowledge uncovered negative effects certain tranquilizers had on an unborn fetus, more citizens began to push for abortion reform. However, what really polarized the American public was the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. After the supreme court upheld this deregulation of abortion, “large numbers of Americans became activists in newly formed pro-life and pro-choice organizations” (Munson 83). Roe v Wade drastically changed the way abortion was viewed in the United States. Even the judicial branch began upholding significant amounts of cases regarding the Constitutionality of abortion (Munson 88).
The panic caused by abortion has stemmed from not only wealthy doctors, but also immensely so from the Catholic Church. Following the Roe v Wade case, the Catholic church sparked the largest hostility toward abortion, and still protests abortion today. The moral panic surrounding abortion “has been constructed in bits and pieces over the course of American history by sets of people and organizations” (Munson 95). Creating two vastly polarized, and often times hostile positions on the legality of abortion.
