Even after abortions became illegal, women continued to have them; they just weren’t advertised the same way. Practitioners did their work behind closed doors or in private homes. Or women without means resorted to desperate – and often dangerous or deadly – measures.
At times, abortion rates increased in the face of the law. The Depression was a perfect example.
Specialists passed out business cards and opened up clinics, Reagan explained, and nobody bothered them. In that era, abortion wasn’t seen as a women’s issue, it was an economic issue.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year,
according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Inspired by the civil rights and anti-war movements, the women’s liberation movement gained steam in the 1960s – and reproductive rights took center stage.