This is frequently claimed by the pro-abortion forces. And they are wrong. This is a great short article.
Abortion Laws: A Recent Development?
Myth: Abortion laws were of rather recent origin, and were adopted to protect women from dangerous surgery, not to protect unborn children.
Reality: Throughout almost all stages of history in nations influenced by Christianity, and in other nations as well, abortion has been strongly condemned by the religious and political leadership of these nations.
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During the 1800s, advanced medical knowledge enabled the doctors to determine the child was alive prior to quickening. In 1859 the American Medical Association unanimously adopted the AMA Report on Criminal Abortion. The report condemned abortion and stated one reason abortions took place was “wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime—a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.” Another reason, the Report stated, was the “grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being.” The Report continued, “With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in utero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, and to its life as yet denies all protection.” Abortion, it stated, was “no simple offence against public morality and decency, no mere misdemeanor, no attempt upon the life of the mother, but the wanton and murderous destruction of her child.” Declaring that “physicians have long been united in condemning the act of producing abortion, at every period of gestation, except as necessary for preserving the life of either mother or child,” the AMA Report called upon state legislatures to make abortion at all stages of gestation a criminal offense.
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