# Prevalence of abortion before Roe v Wade

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prevalence-of-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/964039>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 5, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prevalence-of-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/964039 "2022-05-05T22:05:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prevalence-of-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/964039/21 "2022-05-07T11:59:36Z")

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> [@CairoCarol](#):
>
> > [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
> >
> > Many people who grew up in the 70s/80s and even 90s don’t realize it, but the kids…actually started listening to all the sex ed lectures we ignored. It isn’t just that teen pregnancy has fallen through the floor, teen sex has as well. Kids are actually understanding the long-term consequences of things better and making more mature decisions than they did 30-50 years ago.
> 
> That’s an awfully speculative assertion for FQ. To the best of my knowledge, there is hard data to support the statement that teens are indeed less sexually active now than they were in previous decades.
> 
> But can you definitively state that this is because they are more mature? Or could it be for some other reason, such as the lure of digital technology?

Another significant reason people forget is AIDS. Until then, about mid-80’s, “social diseases” were something that happened to “other people” lower on the social scale and were curable with antibiotics. Protection was a stigma particularly for teens, that they planned to have sex instead of calling it spontaneous. Suddenly, society seemed to be flooded with a disease that was not obvious, was everywhere, and could kill you. Unlike today, people reacted by being wary of disease-inducing activity.

Abortion was an instance in a number of books back in the early 60s- I recall it was a point in _Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz_ that his brother was kicked out of med school for doing one for a friend’s girlfriend; also recall a secret abortion as a plot point in some Taylor Caldwell novel. Illegal abortions happened, and the better off could also travel.

I suspect the spike in the 60’s was due to loosening morals; but a fellow I knew who grew up in the early 50’s mentioned that a lot of girls simply took a year off school to “stay with their aunt in the country” so teen pregnancies were common - just by the 60’s it was easier to find someone who could take care of it.

Also, one impetus to relax and remove Canada’s abortion laws came about because by the late 60’s some hospital medical boards were willing to give a generous interpretation to “health of the mother”. Some allowed for claims of mental health problems from being forced to carry to term, so a number of hospitals would rubber-stamp any request. I assume things were not much different in some states where a health “endangerment” clause was part of the law.

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