quickening, or about the fourth month of pregnancy, historic colonial home medical guides gave recipes for "bringing up the messes" with herbs that could be grown in anyone's back yard. Unfortunately these recipes were fatal and many women died. The first statutes preventing abortion were not actually against abortion. These laws were in fact against poison used in the home, or "poison control". In the 1840's the abortion business was booming, including the sale of illegal drugs that were prohibited by the poison statutes that were mentioned earlier. The sales of illegal drugs and of abortions were advertised openly in the media. To give you an example of how big the business was, the most popular abortionist was Madame Restell; she would openly provide abortion to any women who wanted one. She had offices that she operated out of in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. She also had traveling sales people that promoted her famous female monthly pill.
             Oddly enough in a historical twist the one group that was petitioning for abortion to be outlawed was the American medical association, this was an association of physicians. This same group is now performing a majority of abortions that goes on today. The American medical association's crusade against abortion was not entirely selfless. The reason the association decided to crusade against abortion was because they saw the white American birth rate declining and saw the immigrates birth rate moving up. In that day the economic status and ethnic heritage of the women receiving the abortions were very different from today, the average women who was receiving an abortion were upper class to middle class Caucasian women who were considered Americans. Horatio R. Storer, anti-abortion leader of the cause asked in 1868. " This is a question our women must stated; upon loins depends the future destiny of the nation." The women's r...