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CHAPTER 4. ABORTION DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE 65
Figure 4.1: Articles in Popular Press Related to Abortion, 1930-1996
250
200
Number of Articles
150
100
50
0
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year
existed moved from the mainstream media to “alternative” media (Olasky 1988b).
Luker (1984, 42) suggests that the control exercised by physicians from the end of
the nineteenth century onward was the most significant factor preventing abortion
from becoming a social or political issue. Condit (1990, 23) describes women
as “largely absent from the professional and public realms” where abortion was
being discussed. Similarly, Sitaraman (1994, 7)Sitaraman describes a “period of
public silence” during the first half of the twentieth century , an era “remarkably
free from debate about abortion” (Tribe 1990, 34).
Though there was considerable debate within the scholarly medical literature concerning
the proper “indications” of acceptable abortions (Luker 1984, 40, 270
note 3), only “cautious” (Staggenborg 1991, 14) discussion of the philosophical
or moral issues involved is evident. In 1933, Abortion: Legal or Illegal?
(Rongy 1933) was published, arguing that the then-current abortion laws inappropriately
invoked Christian values, and fostered contempt for the political system
because they were frequently and freely violated by doctors. In 1942, the National
Committee on Maternal Health – which had sponsored publication of the
Rongy volume (Krason 1984) – convened a conference to discuss “the abortion
problem” in the United States, examining both induced and spontaneous abortion.
The conference came to the conclusion that more education about birth
control, and shifts in public and medical opinion, were more likely to reduce
abortions than changes in legislation (Howard C. Taylor 1944). In the following
decade, several national conferences and published books advocated more