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| | [[Image:Hitlerspeech.jpg|thumb|300px|right|In 1942, [[Adolf Hitler]] declared: "In view of the large families of the [[Slavs|Slav]] native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible."<ref>https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07090708.html</ref> After [[World War II]], the War Crimes Tribunal indicted ten [[Nazi]] leaders for "encouraging and compelling abortion," which the tribunal considered a "crime against humanity."<ref>http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them_both_25.asp#But%20didn%E2%80%99t%20Hitler%20oppose%20abortion?</ref> ]] | | [[Image:Hitlerspeech.jpg|thumb|300px|right|In 1942, [[Adolf Hitler]] declared: "In view of the large families of the [[Slavs|Slav]] native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible."<ref>https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07090708.html</ref> After [[World War II]], the War Crimes Tribunal indicted ten [[Nazi]] leaders for "encouraging and compelling abortion," which the tribunal considered a "crime against humanity."<ref>http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them_both_25.asp#But%20didn%E2%80%99t%20Hitler%20oppose%20abortion?</ref> ]] |
| | The '''history of abortion''' goes back thousands of years, and [[abortion]] has been opposed by ethical doctors for just as long. The [[Oath of Hippocrates]], for example, expressly prohibits performing an abortion. | | The '''history of abortion''' goes back thousands of years, and [[abortion]] has been opposed by ethical doctors for just as long. The [[Oath of Hippocrates]], for example, expressly prohibits performing an abortion. |
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| | + | It is estimated that abortion in the United States was as prevalent in the 1840s as it is today:<ref>https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/04/20/aborted-fetus-and-pill-bottle-in-19th-century-new-york-outhouse-reveal-history-of-family-planning/#3832038275a1</ref> |
| | + | :{{cquote|In the 1840s, abortion was commercialized and rates of the practice soared, but at the same time a new movement arose ostensibly concerned with the welfare of embryos and fetuses. While some doctors performed abortions, others sought to apply their Hippocratic Oath to the unborn fetuses and worked to outlaw abortion completely. One particular physician, Dr. Horatio Storer, started an anti-abortion crusade in 1857, dismissing the dangers of childbirth and health complications of pregnancy and introducing propaganda that laid out complications and side effects of abortion that were speculative and non-medical. Adding to this movement, Pope Pius IX's 1869 decree that fetal ensoulment occurs at conception rather than at quickening meant that abortion became an offense for which a woman could be excommunicated from the Catholic church. |
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| | + | "Despite these prohibitions," Zlotucha Kozub explains, "women continued to have abortions. The exact rates of induced abortion were estimated to be very high, perhaps as many as one in five pregnancies."}} |
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| | + | Today estimates are that 19% of pregnancies in the United States terminate in abortion (excluding miscarriages).<ref>https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states</ref> |
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| | Historically all medical school graduates took the Oath of Hippocrates upon graduation, but due to pressure from [[liberal]] pro-abortion groups only one school uses the Oath in its original form, and only 8% of the schools include the ban on abortion in their revised Oath.<ref>http://www.imagerynet.com/hippo.ama.html</ref> | | Historically all medical school graduates took the Oath of Hippocrates upon graduation, but due to pressure from [[liberal]] pro-abortion groups only one school uses the Oath in its original form, and only 8% of the schools include the ban on abortion in their revised Oath.<ref>http://www.imagerynet.com/hippo.ama.html</ref> |