Abortion in Law and Medicine

Archive Report

Pressure for Reform of Abortion Laws

As Taboos against open discussion of abortion fall away, pressures are rising to liberalize state statutes limiting the conditions under which doctors may lawfully terminate a pregnancy. Current interest in reform of abortion laws appears compounded chiefly of pity for women driven to seek illicit and often dangerous means of preventing an unwanted birth—and of impatience with laws that appear to be out of key with actual practice.

Anxiety over the effects of rapid population growth also plays a part in directing attention to the abortion problem. Experts believe that the prevalence of abortion, legal or illegal, has contributed significantly to forestalling still greater expansion of world population than that now occurring. Their answer to moralists opposed to easing American ...

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