See there are some misconceptions (conception -- ha!) about the Roe v. Wade debate vs. abortion legality. Roe v. Wade addressed whether the government would or could help PAY for abortions, but before Roe v. Wade there were actually more states with legal abortion... as long as the citizen paid for it totally. Abortion before that was a medical procedure, rarely performed in a clinic, but a hospital. Because of that it was difficult to PAY for without state assistance, just like many hospital procedures today. By "states pay for" I mean even subsidize through programs and/or tax benefits to those businesses that might provide the services or counseling. The coathangar abortion issue often centered on desperate women seeking an affordable option. It is Roe v. Wade that brought the abortion debate to light and THEN states started driving towards actual bans on the procedures (since you can't bar the payment and subsidy then try to ban the action itself). In any even we are still talking about a state-by-state policy decision, even in 1966, BUT Maryland being a highly Catholic state I would suspect they had stern laws against abortion -- a missed guess because unlike my state (Va) Maryland has a pretty long tradition of not regulating stuff that doesn't absolutely need it. By comparison we've always seen MD. as a bit smutty and permissive. In Virginia it was the reverse on contraception, MARRIED women had no access to it until the '70s (except through their husbands), but unwed women had access (except that women under 19 had to have parental permission).
Roe v. Wade addressed whether the government would or could help PAY for abortions, but before Roe v. Wade there were actually more states with legal abortion... as long as the citizen paid for it totally. Abortion before that was a medical procedure, rarely performed in a clinic, but a hospital. Because of that it was difficult to PAY for without state assistance, just like many hospital procedures today. By "states pay for" I mean even subsidize through programs and/or tax benefits to those businesses that might provide the services or counseling. The coathangar abortion issue often centered on desperate women seeking an affordable option. It is Roe v. Wade that brought the abortion debate to light and THEN states started driving towards actual bans on the procedures (since you can't bar the payment and subsidy then try to ban the action itself). In any even we are still talking about a state-by-state policy decision, even in 1966, BUT Maryland being a highly Catholic state I would suspect they had stern laws against abortion -- a missed guess because unlike my state (Va) Maryland has a pretty long tradition of not regulating stuff that doesn't absolutely need it. By comparison we've always seen MD. as a bit smutty and permissive.
In Virginia it was the reverse on contraception, MARRIED women had no access to it until the '70s (except through their husbands), but unwed women had access (except that women under 19 had to have parental permission).
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