A few years after abortion was legalized, a doctor wrote this letter to the New England Journal of medicine explaining that women were no better off than they had been before.
“Ideally, the reform is designed to encourage women to take responsibility for this most important aspect of their lives, to give them freedom of choice, and to remove the decision from (usually) male authority figures. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily what happens…
Now that abortion is not only possible but fashionable, many young women do not experience themselves as having a choice in the matter any more than they did before. Whereas society once told them that they must have their babies whether they wanted to or not, it now seems to be telling them that they may not have their babies even if they wish to. Before the laws were liberalized in Massachusetts, Nadelson wrote of the mother applying for therapeutic abortion, “we rarely attend her welfare or that of her children; we do not consider her needs, her capacities or aspirations as she sees them.” Now that the laws have been changed, Nadelson’s statement unfortunately still stands.”
Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, letter to the editor, New England Journal of Medicine 292 no. 9 (February 27, 1975): 485
Has 40 years of legal abortion good for women? There are many thousands of women who regret their abortions and take part in postabortion ministries. Cases of eptopic pregnancy and premature births (which studies have shown increase in women who have abortions) have risen exponentially. And many women feel they have no choice but to have an abortion when they become pregnant. Men often coerce women into having abortions. Are things really better?
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