West's Encyclopedia of American Law | Abortion

The spontaneous or artificially induced expulsion of an embryo or fetus. As used in legal context, the term usually refers to induced abortion.

History

English COMMON LAW generally allowed abortion before the "quickening" of the fetus (i.e., the first recognizable movement of the fetus in the uterus), which occurred between the sixteenth and eighteenth weeks of pregnancy. After quickening, however, common law was less clear as to whether abortion was considered a crime. In the United States, state legislatures did not pass abortion statutes until the nineteenth century. After 1880, abortion was criminalized by statute in every state of the Union, owing in large measure to strong anti-abortion positions taken by the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (AMA). Despite the...