I just wrote this for class.
The Abortion Movement and the AMA, 1850-1880
This textbook chapter deals with the abortion movement in the United States in the 1800s when it was illegal for women to get abortions. Back then abortions could he harmful to the mother since they were not regulated due to the fact that they were done outside of the law. There was also a struggle between real doctors and mid-wives. The mid-wives sometimes would insist in infanticide by giving a drug to restore the mother’s menstrual cycle, as if she was just having menstrual problems while in reality, the mid-wives were performing silent abortions.
These mid-wives performing infanticide were not doing what a mid-wife should do. Mid-wives should assist the mother during childbirth, not terminate the pregnancy in its infantile stage of development. The American Medical Association (AMA) was correct in challenging the authority of these pseudo mid-wives.