{"id":269561,"date":"2022-06-07T18:47:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T23:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=269561"},"modified":"2022-06-07T23:06:57","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T04:06:57","slug":"harvard-analysis-abortion-right-early-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/harvard-analysis-abortion-right-early-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis published by Harvard journal finds no proof abortion was seen as a ‘right’ in early America"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

During oral <\/span>arguments<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>Dobbs v Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/span><\/i>, Justice Samuel Alito <\/span>asked<\/span><\/a> Julie Rikelman, the attorney representing the abortion facility, \u201cCan it be said that the right to abortion is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the American people?\u201d Rikelman responded in the affirmative. A similar question posed by Chief Justice Roberts prompted this response by Rikelman: \u201c[A]t the time of the founding and for most of early American history, women had an ability to access abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, according to <\/span>analysis<\/span><\/a> recently published by the <\/span>Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy<\/span><\/i>, Rikelman\u2019s answers were incorrect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers attempted to answer the question, \u201cDid Americans in the Founding Era express in writing the view that American women \u2018had a right to abortion?\u2019\u201d To do so, they performed queries using the <\/span>Corpus of Founding Era American English<\/span><\/a> (COFEA), an online database of \u201cdocuments written and read by ordinary people of the day, including letters, diaries, newspapers, non-fiction books, fiction, sermons, public papers of seven major figures of the Founding Era, and legal materials,\u201d dating from the reign of King George III through the death of George Washington. The authors searched both singular and plural versions of the word \u201cabortion\u201d and examined the context of each instance in which the word appeared to gain insight into the then-current understanding of abortion\u2019s role in early American society.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their <\/span>conclusion<\/span><\/a>? \u201cOur empirical research \u2026 not only failed to find any such writing [supporting the concept of a right to abortion in early America] but further produced persuasive evidence that \u2026 at that time \u2018abortion\u2019 had not developed today\u2019s meaning of a woman\u2019s voluntary choice to end pregnancy but instead was generally used in the same way we use \u2018miscarriage\u2019 today[.]\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Leaked SCOTUS draft: Roe v. Wade was \u2018egregiously wrong from the start\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Researchers found 135 unique instances of the word \u201cabortion\u201d in the COFEA database, which is <\/span>publicly available<\/span><\/a>. Of these, 37 were metaphorical, generally <\/span>referring<\/span><\/a> to \u201ca misshapen or monstrous living thing or to an unfortunate occurrence.\u201d The other 98 instances clearly referred to termination of pregnancy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Out of these 98, 85 appeared in the context of involuntary terminations \u2013 what we would call \u201cmiscarriages.\u201d Dr. John Elliot\u2019s <\/span>Medical Pocketbook<\/span><\/i>, for example, gives a detailed definition of abortion that is clearly analogous with miscarriage; the entry for \u201cmiscarriage,\u201d on the other hand, simply refers readers back to the entry for \u201cabortion.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Authors did find 12 instances in which context indicated an author\u2019s awareness that a woman might voluntarily terminate her pregnancy by killing her preborn child. These were further investigated to determine whether the word \u201cright\u201d or \u201cprivilege\u201d appeared contextually \u2013 no such instances were found. Furthermore, the texts overwhelmingly portrayed voluntary abortion in a negative light, even referring to it as murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

This investigation reveals the disingenuous nature of claims made by Rikelman and <\/span>others<\/span><\/a> that voluntary abortion was part of early American life. No evidence of such a reality can be found within the texts written and widely read during that era; indeed, it is clear from their words that early Americans saw involuntary abortion as an unfortunate occurence to be avoided, and intentional abortion as an abomination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer to Justice Alito\u2019s question is \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito asked Julie Rikelman, the attorney representing the abortion facility, \u201cCan it be said that the right to abortion is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the American people?\u201d Rikelman responded in the affirmative. A similar question posed by Chief Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":269562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,3473],"tags":[19,17684,14778,12433,17685],"yoast_head":"\nAnalysis published by Harvard journal finds no proof abortion was seen as a 'right' in early America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An attorney claimed abortion was deeply rooted in American history, but research showed \u201cthat \u2026 at that time \u2018abortion\u2019 had not developed today\u2019s meaning."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/harvard-analysis-abortion-right-early-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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