Abortion

Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy before the fetus is developed sufficiently to survive outside the uterus. Loss of a fetus at a later gestational age is termed premature stillbirth.

Abortion may be accidental (miscarriage), or deliberate (termination of pregnancy).

In the Middle Ages if a pregnant woman was having pains, it was often thought it was because she had kittens crawling inside her womb as a result of a witches curse. As a result abortions were often allowed by courts in order to remove these cats from the womb. The phrase "Someone is having kittens" originates from this.

The first reference to abortion in English law appeared in the 13th century, when the law followed Church teaching that abortion was acceptable until "quickening". This, it was believed, was when the soul entered the fetus at around 13 weeks.

The first law making abortion illegal in Britain was the 1803 Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act.

Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion on January 28, 1935.

In Britain, the Abortion Act legalized abortion, making it free on demand and available on the National Health Service in 1967.

In America the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade and the lesser known Doe v. Bolton, both on January 22, 1973, overturned all state laws restricting abortion. As a result abortions became legal during the first six months of pregnancy. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.

The picture below shows Rep. Albert Wynn (left) and Gloria Feldt (right), President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, on the steps of the Supreme Court, rallying in support of the pro-choice movement on the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Six years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, abortions had doubled in the US to 1.5 million per year, nearly half the number of live births.

"Jane Roe" was the legal pseudonym of Leah McCorvey, the plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case. In 1994 she became a Christian and voiced remorse for her part in the Supreme Court decision. McCorvey devoted the rest of her life to opposing the social change she had helped bring about,

In 2021, the US state of Mississippi asked the United Stated Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation – a dispute over Mississippi’s proposed law banning most abortions after 15 weeks gestation. On June 24, 2022, in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court determined abortion is not a protected right, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

In 2005 it was calculated that there were three abortions in the UK for every ten births-a total of 190,000 terminations in England and Wales every year. The average British woman would have 2.2 healthy pregnancies in her lifetime, but would give birth to only 1.7 children. The number of abortions accounts for the difference. This would not enough to keep the UK population stable.

According to 2021 figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), on average 73.3 million abortions are performed every year. That's 200,821 per day., 8,367 per hour, 139 per minute.

A 2021 survey of more than 5,000 women suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum (morning sickness) found that five per cent of them had terminated a wanted pregnancy because of it, while 52 per cent had considered termination.

Sierra Leone is the only country where a British law from 1861 still explicitly bans abortion. The Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, a piece of British legislation, was inherited by many of its former colonies. However, while many of these countries have since reformed their abortion laws, Sierra Leone has retained the original, strict prohibition.

It is estimated that, in India, 100,000 abortions are performed every year solely because the fetus is female.

In El Salvador, it is illegal to have an abortion under any circumstances including rape, incest, or harm to the mother or child.

Here is a list of songs that deal with abortion.

Source  Britain In Numbers: The Essential Statistics