A few days ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, deciding that the US Constitution does not provide for the right to abortion, and the states have the right to regulate this area on their own. At the same time, the effect of the decision of the long-standing case Roe v. Wade has been cancelled.

This decision has become one of the most discussed in the history of American legal proceedings, and now social networks are literally inflamed with fierce discussions between those in favor of the right to abortion and their opponents. At the same time, some participants in the dispute are more interested in the formal side of the Supreme Court’s verdict.

For example, John Skinner, a software engineer from Texas, was intrigued by the Supreme Court’s claim that abortion is not “deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this Nation.” Skinner went to archives and did a lot of research on whether Americans in the 18th century used the word “abortion” itself, and if so, in what sense. The Twitter thread in which Skinner presented the results of his research went viral, garnering nearly 200K likes in total.

More info: Twitter

Texas software engineer decided to check whether the Supreme Court was right in its wording

Image credits: Janine (not the actual photo)

So, the Original Poster originally suggested that Americans in the 18th century didn’t talk about abortion at all. It turned out he was very wrong. They talked, and a lot! Moreover, the term itself was used in two meanings: directly practical, as well as metaphorical.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

The Original Poster found a lot of mentions of the term in the various documents dated in the 18th century

By practical significance, Skinner is referring to the termination of unwanted pregnancies. For example, in 1752, a man had “too familiar conversations” with a milkmaid, as a result of which she became pregnant. Wanting to keep everything a secret from his wife and not trusting the midwife, the man turned to local healers, and they gave him some “herbs.”

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Unfortunately, Skinner writes, the “herbs” turned out to be arsenic, and the unfortunate woman died. As a result, both the hapless lover and his acquaintances, the “alchemists,” went on trial. At the same time, they were punished for the fact of poisoning, and not for the abortion itself, which only indicates that abortions were a fairly common and completely legal thing.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Americans also used the term in its metaphoric meaning, for example, to criticize their opponents

At the same time, as Skinner notes, the use of the term “abortion” in a metaphorical sense also confirms the simple fact that people perceived it as something ordinary. For example, a quote from a 1774 political critique: “unless our ministry are such skillful midwives as to procure an abortion, we shall be surprised with something monstrous.”

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

In other words, the OP claims, we can find out that abortions were a skilled work performed by midwife, intentional, seen as something good, and in addition – a kind of protection from “monstrous births.” This latter, in turn, is a consequence of the medieval Christian belief that some babies are hell-sent monsters whose birth must be prevented.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

The OP also found a poem which the author compared the American Revolution to abortion, and its enemies to the very “monstrous births”

In addition, Skinner found mentions of abortion as a symbol of freedom in the work of the poetess known as Philo-Sappho. Some historians believe that a woman named Anna Dix from Massachusetts was hiding under the pseudonym. In the poem quoted by Skinner, the American Revolution itself is compared to abortion, and its enemies to those very monstrous births.

Image credits: Jake&Brady (not the actual photo)

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Moreover, during the Revolution, Anna actively helped the rebels, and the tavern which she run often served as their base for various operations. And back in 1792, Anna Dix became the first female litigant before the US Supreme Court. That year, and also six years later, Anna stood up for her right to run a business on her own.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

So the OP found out that the right to abortion goes back long before the Roe v. Wade case

Thus, Skinner states, the right to abortion is nothing new in the US, and goes back long before the 1973 decision in the Roe v. Wade case. At the same time, as the OP admits, he is by no means a professional historian, but simply an interested amateur who decided to find out how right the Supreme Court was in its wording. As it turns out, it was wrong.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

The OP’s main goal was just to verify or disprove the very Supreme Court’s dogmatic wording

Of course, John adds, we should not be guided by exactly what 18th-century people said about abortions. Many of those people were complete idiots who owned slaves and died from unnecessary bloodletting, admits the OP. The bottom line is that abortion was common enough for the time, so the Supreme Court’s claim is totally wrong.

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

Image credits: jskilesskinner

The Twitter thread created by John Skinner has become incredibly popular and sparked a new round of discussion, so we are sure that you too have something to say in the comments on this post.

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