Abortion During The Antebellum Period

During the antebellum period, birth rates were very high due to the lack of effective birth control for both free and enslaved women. During this time, attitudes toward sex were to be limited to husband and wife, and limitations on birth control were not supported. Abortion was the primary form of birth control during the antebellum and Civil War era. Abortions were first thought of as a quick fix. “Every female who undergoes any of the disgusting operation practiced for this purpose, does so at the risk of her life and to the almost certain destruction of her health, if she survives… that there are no safe means for abortion…” (Doc. #8).
Abortion was frowned upon during this era and soon led to laws against abortion due to the extreme risks. …show more content…
Without a source of birth control, women would be forced to sit at home taking care and having child after child. Women could not properly take a place in society if trapped in the house taking care of children continually. “Children have neither been instructed in religion, nor governed in early life, as they were in the days of our fathers…” (Doc. #1) Birth control was also favored because it helped keep families small. If a family only had a few children, the parents could afford to provide them with tools they needed to have a successful life. However, larger families would not be able to have these benefits.
The Birth Control movement, led by Margaret Sanger, looked at overcoming laws that made birth control illegal. Margaret Sanger wanted to make information on birth control available to all women. In this time period, sex was only for the need of reproduction. Therefore, if women were going to stop reproducing, there was no need for sex. Sanger and others discussed, openly, how sex should be used for pleasure over reproduction. This movement and topic was revolutionary at the time, because women did not typically speak on this subject. People did not talk about sex in the form of pleasure during this