Snapshot of the history and progression of abortion in the USA

1/2/2023 by Cathy Helms cathy@cathyhelms.com

From ChristianLifeResources.com as of June 2022

1959

• The American Law Institute (ALI) proposes a model penal code for state abortion laws. The code advocates legalizing abortion for reasons including the mental or physical health of the mother, pregnancy due to rape and incest, and fetal deformity. [Cathy’s note: This organization is behind the current attempt to legalize or lower penalties for pedophilia.]

1967

• Apr. 25: Colorado Gov. John A. Love signs the first “liberalized” ALI-model abortion law in the United States, allowing abortion in cases of permanent mental or physical disability of either the child or mother or in cases of rape or incest. Similar laws are passed in California, Oregon, and North Carolina.
• The Virginia Society for Human Life is founded becoming the first statewide right-to-life organization in the country.

1968

• National Right to Life is formed in the summer of 1968 and publishes its first newsletter in October 1968. The board of directors grows to include representatives with a diverse range of backgrounds including doctors, lawyers, nurses, homemakers, and educators.

 1970

• Apr. 11: New York allows abortion on demand up to the 24th week of pregnancy Similar laws are passed in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington state.

1971

• Apr. 21: The U.S. Supreme Court rules on its first case involving abortion upholding a District of Columbia law permitting abortion only to preserve a woman’s life or “health.” However, the Court makes it clear that by “health” it means “psychological and physical well-being,” effectively allowing abortion for any reason.
• June: National Right to Life holds its first annual convention

1972

• By year’s end a total of 13 states have an ALI-type law. Four states allow abortion on demand. New York repeals its 1970 abortion law but Gov. Rockefeller vetoes the repeal.

1973

• Jan. 22: The U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling in Roe v. Wade, finding that a “right of privacy” it had earlier discovered was “broad enough to encompass” a right to abortion… Issued on the same day, Doe v. Bolton defines “health” to mean “all factors” that affect the woman, including “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age.

The floodgates were opened in1973 and 744,610 babies were slaughtered in the year of this ruling by SCOTUS. But even more horrific, by 1978, just five years later, that figure had nearly doubled to 1,410,000. By 1990 babies murdered by abortion in the US reached the height of nearly 1,609,000 babies and the US was exporting this legislation throughout the world as a condition of receiving other help. Thankfully, the USA dipped to under a million abortions in 2013 and have remained there ever since. abortion-statistics-by-year-1973-current/

According to Wikipedia: The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs.^[1] Members of ALI include law professors, practicing attorneys, judges and other professionals in the legal industry. ALI writes documents known as “treatises“, which are summaries of state common law (legal principles that come out of state court decisions). Many courts and legislatures look to ALI’s treatises as authoritative reference material concerning many legal issues. However, some legal experts and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, along with some conservative commentators,^[2] have voiced concern about ALI rewriting the law as they want it to be instead of as it is.^[3]

The ALI drafts, approves, and publishes Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, model acts, and other proposals for law reform. The ALI is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

At any time, ALI is engaged in up to 20 projects examining the law. Some current projects have been watched closely by the media, particularly the revision of the Model Penal Code Sexual Assault provisions.^[4][5][6]*

*Cathy’s note:  This is legislation that proposes, among other things, legalization and lower penalties for pedophilia.

For more information on ALI check out this article:

a-powerful-legal-group-changes-the-law-while-nobodys-looking

Noach 2018

Torah Portion:  Genesis 6:9–11:32

Haftarah Portion:  Isaiah 54:1–55:5

New Testament Portion:  Luke 17:26-27, Hebrews 11:5-7, 1Peter 3:20, 2Peter 2:5, 3:9-14

 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”  (Heb. 11:6)

“Noah walked with God.” (Gen. 6:9) Let that settle upon your mind for a moment. Is there any higher praise for a human being?

Day 2 We and our fathers have sinned.

According to Andrew White, author of Father Forgive , page 66, Ignatius of Antioch wrote that  anyone who eats the Passover with the Jews was in league with those responsible for killing Jesus. In letters to several Christian communities, Ignatius refers to Jews in a very derogatory way, at one point declaring it is “monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism” (To the Magnesians 10:3).

Since we are focusing these 40 days on attitudes, we choose to forgive our forefathers for their failings and search our lives to see where we have used our tongues (or pens) to “set on fire the course of hell.”  Like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, we humbly approach God to beseech Him to forgive us and change us as a people.

Father, today, on Day 2, we ask you to forgive us and our forefathers for lack of understanding Your word, for lack of understanding the height and width and depth of Your love and Your kingdom, and for failing to ask You for the grace to extend it to our neighbors.

Forgive us, Abba, for counting Your feasts a “strange thing.”

In addition, we ask You to heal the wounds of the Jewish people that we have caused and to help us to unite as brothers. Abba, we ask You to forgive those whose tongues were weapons against the Jews and those who believed their hurtful words. Forgive us where we have made proclamations that did not align with Scripture and where our words have been arrows and darts that caused great harm.  Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.  (Psalm 19:14)

Related Scripture:

[Exo 12:47-50 ESV]  47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” 50 All the people of Israel did just as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.

[1Co 5:7-8 ESV] 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

[Eph 2:11-13 ESV] 11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands– 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

[Jhn 20:22-23 ESV] 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

[Hos 8:11-12 ESV] 11 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. 12 Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing.

[Jas 3:5-6 ESV] 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.

[Ezr 9:7 ESV] 7 From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today.

[Neh 9:16-17 ESV] 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

[Dan 9:8 ESV] 8 To us, O LORD, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.

 

We and our fathers have sinned.

It’s been quite a while since I sat down with the intent to create a blog post.  Carpal tunnel syndrome threatened, a sure sign that I needed a break.  I forsook Facebook and focused on prayer and the Scripture. What compelled me to open this page and begin to write was THE LIST that I received about a week before the 9^th of Av, which in 2018 fell on July 21.