The Pre-Roe Pro-Life Movement in Minnesota and New York

Chapter 1: The Pre-History of the Contemporary Anti-Abortion
Movement: The Long Shadow of Nineteenth Century Abortion Law
The story of the nineteenth-century anti-abortion movement illuminates many of
the themes the twentieth-century actors encountered in their crusade against abortion law
reform. Although their direct motivations differed greatly, discourse in the fields of law,
professional medicine, and public debate shaped the arguments and influence of
nineteenth and twentieth century anti-abortion activists alike. Abortion was legal in
1800; yet by 1900, abortion was criminalized throughout the United States. The earliest
anti-abortion actors swayed government and public opinion on the issue through secular
and medical language in letters and public statements; MCCL helped hold off the
liberalization of legalized abortion in the five years before the Roe decision by employing
the same approach. Indeed, the story of the nineteenth century anti-abortion movement
provides the background for MCCL and its national successors. Discourse in the fields
of professional medicine established over a century ago ran throughout the early
contemporary anti-abortion story. Although the nineteenth century shift was seen most
tangibly in the changes in law and public opinion, one must primarily look to
professional medicine and science to best explain this change.
Scholar James C. Mohr asserts that “regular” or professional physicians were “the
first right-to-lifers of American history,” though their initial motivations could not have
differed more from twentieth and twenty-first century anti-abortion activists. 1
Having
lost much of their abortion-related income to midwives and homeopaths that also
1 James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 10.
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