Thread by @jillwieberlens

Here’s another wrinkle that @GreerDonley and I mention in our new paper, which concerns pregnancy loss and abortion—and fetal personhood. We ran into some research relevant to the historical debate re abortion and quickening around 14A ratification. 1/11

https://twitter.com/AaronTangLaw/status/1440411891134648325

In her recent (wonderful!) book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy, historian @larafreidenfeld explores how notions of pregnancy loss, especially early miscarriage, have changed over time. 2/11

One influence was the development of technology to diagnose pregnancy—the first lab pregnancy test was not developed until the 1920s (and it involved injecting urine into mice!). Before then, quickening was the only confirmation of pregnancy. 3/11

The commonality of missed periods and irregular cycles due to illness, poor nutrition, and living conditions, etc., and the frequency of “late periods” that were actually miscarriages meant (unlike today) women genuinely did not suspect pregnancy simply from missed periods. 4/11

Proving abortion before quickening would have been almost impossible because there was no proof of pregnancy, and doctors regularly treated women for missed or irregular periods, which was not considered abortion. Pregnancy was neither confirmable nor real until quickening. 5/11

@larafreidenfeld also describes that the importance of quickening also meant “no obvious moral distinction [existed] between intervening before or after conception.” 6/11

@larafreidenfeld also explains that some in 1800s were pushing idea that abortion before quickening was immoral, but they faced “an uphill battle … since so many women seemed unconcerned by miscarriage and, like the physicians, did not differentiate it from abortion.” 7/11

[Fun fact that one antiabortion advocate at the time found miscarriage caused by an orgasm during sex equally immoral to drug-induced abortion!] 8/11

@larafreidenfeld also describes that early miscarriages were welcomed and abortions necessary to space out pregnancies – too-close pregnancies were (and still are) dangerous to health. And they worked. Woman averaged 7 children in 1800, but only 3-4 children by 1900. 9/11

All of this taken together suggests that even if a state did ban abortions before quickening, at most this expressed (male) legislators’ beliefs rather than a widespread, moral consensus about fetal personhood given women’s opinions and practices. 10/11

We're not ready to post our draft yet, but please get in touch if you're interested in reviewing -- @GreerDonley and I welcome feedback! 11/11