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

consent upon her own request to a competent physician?” 31
Nationwide, the results
showed 62.8% of physicians in favor; in Minnesota, only 55.6% were in favor. 32
Minnesotan physicians did not have a clear stance on the issue; they did not champion
law reform like they had in the nineteenth century. MCCL’s ability to recruit physicians
was the reason all physicians didn’t subscribe to the pro-abortion camp. Joining activists
from various professions, doctors took part in both sides of the debate.
Clearly, the 1950s brought about a change in the abortion issue within the medical
profession. As articulated before, because of the authority and unique technical language
of physicians in the debate, one could argue that doctors themselves needed to change
their opinions for any large shifts to occur. Because of the growing disparity of the
administration of abortions from doctor to doctor, paired with the controversial guidelines
of the hospital abortion committees, many physicians began to reject their strictly antiabortion,
nineteenth-century platforms on the issue. And yet, nineteenth-century
physicians could not win over a majority of the public and legislators on their own in the
first Crusade, and neither would they do the same in the twentieth century. 33
In the
1850s, sensational stories in the New York Times and the support of feminists helped
promote awareness of the cause to people that physicians could not reach or convince. 34
Likewise, in the early 1960s, increased press coverage, growing knowledge of abortion
problems, and the help of concerned citizens outside the medical sphere motivated a
movement for the reversal of the nineteenth-century abortion laws. This in turn triggered
31 Modern Medicine, About Us, last modified 2010, http://www.modernmedicine.com/aboutus;
“Recent Public Opinion Polls” Handout, 1969, Box 2, Folder: 1969-96 Opinion Polls: Abortion MN &
NAT, NARAL Pro-Choice MN Records.
32 Ibid.
33 Mohr, 146.
34 Ibid., 172.
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