Abortion, or induced miscarriage, was one of the most controversial topics in the post-Civil War United States. Indeed, the rights an individual woman holds over her uterus seem to have been debated ever since the inception of such social institutions as religion and law. While some cultures have permitted or even encouraged selective termination of pregnancy—if, for example, the fetus turned out to be female when a family already had an ample supply of daughters; or if a woman was ill or not financially able to raise a child—in Western civilization, church and state traditionally forbade abortion and even contraceptive measures. If a woman was to be sexual, it seemed, she had to accept pregnancy and childbirth. Those opposed to abortion focused on the fetus and maintained that expelling it constituted the murder of a human being; the pro-abortion faction argued from the pregnant woman's perspective...