“During the period from 1840 to 1880, abortion became much more widely practiced and visible than it had been before, chiefly among upper-class Protestant women. During this same period, doctors-particularly through the newly formed American Medical Association-came to dominate the process of abortion legislation in a virtual crusade to outlaw the practice at all stages of pregnancy. The doctors’ rallying cry was a moral claim about fetal life, which perhaps stemmed from their knowledge that the quickening distinction had no basis in science. The motivations behind the physicians crusade, though, surely were more numerous and probably included: the desire to eliminate their nonprofessional competition; the drive to develop a legal code of ethics to further the process of professionalization; the desire to attain status as an important policymaking group; the desire to promote racial purity by fighting the increase in abortion among wealthy, white women; and the tendency to perpetuate a paternalistic social order that pushed women into the childbearing role. The latter two goals likely resulted simply from physicians being members of a society and class that shared certain views of women and minorities.”
