Did 19th Century anti-abortion doc crusader save your life?
Abortion was common in America in the middle of the nineteenth century…. [It was] estimat[ed] that at least 20 percent of pregnancies were ending in induced abortion at the time….
A Boston physician, Horatio Robinson Storer [chairman of the American Medical Association, pictured]… carried out extensive research… [and] [f]rom 1860 to 1880 nearly every state and territory passed stringent anti-abortion legislation….
What are the chances that one or more of your direct ancestors were born because of the… laws against abortion that Dr. Storer and the AMA demanded and the widespread physician persuasion of women to continue pregnancies that these laws supported? You may be surprised….
Approximately 56 million children were born during the generation from 1870 to 1900. If 3 percent of these were born from unwanted pregnancies that went to term because of the physicians’ crusade, this would amount to 1,680,000 children whose lives were saved….
However, the abortion reductions produced by the “physicians’ crusade” were not limited to a single generation and three percent is a low estimate for the number of additional children born because of the crusade. If one assumes five percent for only two generations beginning in 1870, the 38.6 percent figure for our current generation becomes a whopping 71 percent! This too, however, is an underestimate, because anti-abortion laws and physician persuasion continued to cause unwanted pregnancies to be completed for every generation up to 1973. If you have primarily Protestant ancestors who lived in the U.S., you can be fairly certain that your own existence was one result of the successes of Storer’s “physicians’ crusade.”…
Although those who view the restrictive abortion laws overturned by Roe v. Wade as abominations would be reluctant to admit it, Horatio Robinson Storer [who also authored the very first anti-abortion tract for women] may have been the most important person in the United States in the nineteenth century.
~ Frederick N. Dyer, “19th Century state abortion laws probably allowed you to be born,” Washington Times Communities, February 17
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
That’s really interesting. Neither side of my family was in the US in the nineteenth century, but my ex-wife’s was, and they were all very Protestant. So my kids might exist because of Storer. :D
On a side note, maybe people can stop pretending that this generation is so much worse when it comes to abortion then any other. Twenty percent of pregnancies ending in abortion is pretty comparable to our rates now. Apparently when abortion is legal you see the same rates of people getting abortions, even with our terrible decadent society nowadays.
I don’t get it? How did all those children survive if making abortion illegal just “DRIVES IT TO THE BACKALLIES AND THEN WOMEN KILL THEMSELVES ON RUSTY COATHANGERS AND DIEEEEEEEE BY THE BAJILLIONS!!!!!!!”?
How dare this man try to educate women on the humanity of the fetus in the womb.
I mean, we all know women shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about such things as “science.” Pamphlets and ultrasounds are just propaganda made for coercion so the patriarchy can continue to control women.
Haha! I just wanted to try some of that fauxminist-speak to see how it sounded. I made myself laugh.
This is interesting. All of my ancestors were either Protestant all the way back to the English revolt or they were American Indian. Likewise, they were all in the US during that time period. Working on our genealogy for years it became apparent that our Protestant families had just as many children as Catholics until 1900. So this supports what I found to be true in the census.
Documents written by our own US government promoted intermarriage to eliminate the Indian blood. The next step, sadly, in the early 1920’s was more racist- eugenics. Even my Protestant ancestors came to believe in eugenics and pushed their American Indian daughter-in-laws to abort their grandchildren by giving them a tea. My own grandmother rebelled and told me more than once that she had ALL of the children God gave her. It was from this protestant Cherokee grandmother that I learned as a small child that abortion was wrong. Racism is a immense factor in abortion.
I can’t believe they let a man talk about abortion.
Hi Courtnay,
Its only acceptable for men to talk about abortion when they support it and/or profit from it. Otherwise, what could men possibly know about abortion?
Has anyone noticed that there is such a kindness present in Dr. Storer’s countenance? In contrast, Carhart’s is cold and wooden.
I don’t get how you could say he was the most important person of the 9th Centrury. Maybe to your movement, but abortion laws come and go. I wouldn’t put him up there with Lincoln, or Grant, or Mark Twain.
My great-great-grandmother was married to my great-great-grandfather after his first wife died during a botched abortion. He had two children by his first wife, 5 daughters by his second. My mother’s maternal grandmother is here because his first wife died during her abortion.
What are the chances that one or more of your direct ancestors were born because of the… laws against abortion that Dr. Storer and theAMAdemanded and the widespread physician persuasion of women to continue pregnancies that these laws supported? You may be surprised….”
No chance about it. My brother and I are here only because abortion was illegal.
Do you mean two living children, or is one of the children your grandfather had from his previous marriage the one that passed away along with his first wife? Because otherwise, he had THREE children with his first wife, 5 with his second.
“Has anyone noticed that there is such a kindness present in Dr. Storer’s countenance?”
Thought exactly the same thing, EJ.
He has very kind eyes.
Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.
Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.
I would like a source for this, because that would be interesting.
Since you seem to have statistics on how adoptees are the ones who are really harming society through serial murder, perhaps you’ll have no trouble locating the stats on your above statement.
Kel says:
February 19, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.
I would like a source for this, because that would be interesting.
(Denise) Oh, come on. Just think about it. If anyone’s ancestry is traced back for thousands and thousands of years, there is bound to be a pregnancy through rape in there as well as pregnancies through adultery and prostitution.
<<Since you seem to have statistics on how adoptees are the ones who are really harming society through serial murder, perhaps you’ll have no trouble locating the stats on your above statement.>>
(Denise) I never said that adoptees are causing society terrible problems. There are strong statistical links between adoption and certain negative things. This should not be that hard to understand as the first relationship a baby has — the connection with the womb in which he or she develops — is severed for adoptees. In the case of closed adoptions, there is often mystery and confusion surrounding the adopted person’s identity.
There are also strong statistical links between being raised by a single mother and many negative things. For example, the majority of imprisoned rapists were raised in single-mother households.
Neither the negatives associated with adoption nor the negatives associated with single motherhood justify abortion. Both give good reason to ensure that babies are born to stable, happily married women. I say “women” because babies come out of female bodies. It is good for those females to be in happy and secure marriages — to men, since most women appear to be heterosexual — before having babies.
Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.
I would like a source for this, because that would be interesting.
(Denise) Oh, come on. Just think about it. If anyone’s ancestry is traced back for thousands and thousands of years, there is bound to be a pregnancy through rape in there as well as pregnancies through adultery and prostitution.
Saying “there is bound to be one” is not the same as saying “every one of us” has one, so “we owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.” Hopefully you are aware of the difference in these statements.
Kel says:
February 19, 2013 at 7:34 pm
Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.I would like a source for this, because that would be interesting.(Denise) Oh, come on. Just think about it. If anyone’s ancestry is traced back for thousands and thousands of years, there is bound to be a pregnancy through rape in there as well as pregnancies through adultery and prostitution.
Saying “there is bound to be one” is not the same as saying “every one of us” has one, so “we owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.” Hopefully you are aware of the difference in these statements.
(Denise) If you could trace your ancestry back 20,000 or 30,000 years, don’t you regard it as inevitable that you have an ancestor conceived in rape?
My buddies in college used to tease me because I’m part Cherokee. They said, “Oooooh, x is descended from rape victims!!!” :(
xalisae says:
February 20, 2013 at 12:01 am
My buddies in college used to tease me because I’m part Cherokee. They said, “Oooooh, x is descended from rape victims!!!”
(Denise) Don’t you believe it is likely that if ancestry is traced back tens of thousands of years, all human beings are descended from rapes?
I’ve been told I have Cherokee, Osage, and Cree ancestry.
Don’t you believe it is likely that if ancestry is traced back tens of thousands of years, all human beings are descended from rapes?
Yeah, possibly. But what of it? It’s not as though anyone’s been campaigning for legalized rape/forced insemination. This is about a stay of execution for children already created. I think you have a really unhealthy fixation on rape and offspring from such unions.
If you could trace your ancestry back 20,000 or 30,000 years, don’t you regard it as inevitable that you have an ancestor conceived in rape?
*An* ancestor? Sure, that’s possible, even probable that somewhere in my family tree – directly or indirectly – someone was conceived in less than ideal circumstances. But I /we don’t “owe my/our existence” to adultery, prostitution and rape. And when reading the wording of your statement, that’s what you implied. Again, I will state that saying “there is bound to be one” is not the same as saying “every one of us” has one, so “we owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.”
You’re trying to unsay what you said, as well as claim I’ve said what I haven’t. I am using quotes by you, Denise. Maybe you should re-read what you wrote. Clearly you’re not listening.
X: I think you have a really unhealthy fixation on rape and offspring from such unions.
Ya think?
“Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape. Thus, we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.” Denise Noe
That is poor logic. Maybe you mean that there are some who owe their lives to those *people*, who in spite of the unhappy or evil circumstances surrounding the conception of their babies, were open to life. ….And that is definitely God’s grace at work :)
Every individual on the planet is the result of particular and specific combinations of DNA. Thus, you wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here, every one who exists today would not exist if the specific couplings and births that led to his or her existence had not taken place.
If you go back thousands and thousands of years, each individual on this planet has an ancestress who conceived in prostitution, carried to term, and gave birth to the result of prostitution. Ditto for adultery and rape. I don’t believe there is one person on the planet who — if one goes back far enough — does not have a conception through rape in the ancestry. In that sense, we are all products of girls and women who carried to term after being raped.
Perhaps. Kinda shows you how worthy of life “rape babies” are, eh?
I don’t believe there is one person on the planet who — if one goes back far enough — does not have a conception through rape in the ancestry. In that sense, we are all products of girls and women who carried to term after being raped.
Denise, are you making the claim that all of us were conceived in rape?
Very sad. With the promotion of marxist ideals, medicine went from strongly opposing abortion to strongly favoring abortion – to the point where a prenatally detected birth defect – even cystic fibrosis, with a life expectancy of 35+ years, brings the pressure to abort. Even the March of Dimes worships the modern ideal – their motto is to decrease not the number of children with birth defects thru prevention of birth defects, but to reduce the number of children BORN with birth defects, whether by prevention or prenatal-detection-and-abortion.
We have such a strong healthcare and welfare system that we can look the other way as millions of illegal immigrants stream across the border regularly – but we cannot support our own children? They are too much of a burden? This is sick.
They even changed the Hippocratic Oath, which was clearly anti-abortion. Some still follow the original, but most medical schools have adopted a version where the oath to never assist in abortion is deleted.
http://www.life.org.nz/abortion/abortionmedicalkeyissues/hippocraticoath/
Denise Noe wrote on February 19 at 4:12 pm, “Every one of us has an ancestor conceived in adultery, prostitution, and rape.”
In the apostle Matthew’s list of the ancestors of my Lord Jesus Christ, there are four women mentioned: Tamar, Ruth, “her who had been the wife of Uriah,” and Mary. The first three were considered bad women.
The father of Jesus Christ’s ancester Perez was his mother Tamar‘s father-in-law (her father-in-law about three times over). She had disguised herself like a prostitute to get him to sleep with her, a fact which caused him to relent from having her burned when he first accused her of being a prostitute and she then proved him to be the father.
The father of Jesus Christ’s ancestor Moab was also his grandfather, Lot. Lot’s two daughters made their father drunk and then slept with him. Moab was a product of this incest. Ruth was a Moabite woman.
The father of Jesus Christ’s ancestor Solomon was not originally the lawful husband of Solomon’s mother. Jesus’ father David committed adultery with her and then had the lawful husband, Uriah, killed. However, Solomon was David and Bathsheba’s second child.
We also know that “Rahab the harlot” is an ancestor of Jesus Christ. She actually was a prostitute. My Lord became like me in every way possible, sin excepted (by the miracle of the virgin birth). As the second Adam, He is now my ancestor.
Charles Darwin: all human beings are descended from apes
Denise Noe: all human beings are descended from rapes
Kel says:
February 20, 2013 at 11:22 pm
I don’t believe there is one person on the planet who — if one goes back far enough — does not have a conception through rape in the ancestry. In that sense, we are all products of girls and women who carried to term after being raped.
Denise, are you making the claim that all of us were conceived in rape?
(Denise) All of us have ancestors conceived in rape.
Denise Noe: “…we all owe our lives to adultery, prostitution, and rape.”
No, dear Denise. We all owe our lives to God, who allows good things to come from horrific situations.
TheLastDemocrat – I applaud every word of your insightful comments. When did we turn from welcoming our children because they’re ours, to screening them for genetic disorders while still in utero? Was it some time around Woodstock? Was it after Griswold vs. Connecticut? At some point, the thought of marital intimacy became old-fashioned, and was disconnected from child-bearing. When sex became a recreational sport, its dual purpose designed by God – the procreation of children and the creation of a loving, lifelong bond between the married couple – was abandoned for more worldly pursuits.