Embryo Project Encyclopedia Articles

Margaret Higgins Sanger advocated for birth control in the United States and Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although people used contraceptives prior to the twentieth century, in the US the 1873 Comstock Act made the distribution of information relating to the use of contraceptives illegal, and similar state-level Comstock laws also classified discussion and dissemination of contraceptives as illegal. Sanger helped to repeal the Comstock Act and similar laws so that women could legally use contraceptives to control their fertility and the sizes of their families. In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US in New York City, New York. Later in life, Sanger formed several advocacy organizations that promoted access to contraception, including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger's advocacy increased women's access to contraception and helped change the United States' social and legal perceptions of birth control.

Margaret Goldwater advocated for birth control and reproductive rights in the United States during the twentieth century. Goldwater was a socialite and philanthropist and was married to Barry Goldwater, US Senator from Arizona. She spent much of her life working to further the women's reproductive rights movement, which sought to expand women's legal, social, and physical access to reproductive healthcare, including contraception and abortions. Goldwater, with guidance from birth control activist Margaret Sanger, helped establish the second birth control clinic in Arizona, the Mother's Health Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. She conducted large fundraising events and authored articles in local newspapers on the need for contraceptives and family planning. Goldwater's advocacy helped launch and sustain The Mother's Health Clinic, which became the largest provider of women's reproductive healthcare in Arizona, and it later became Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona.

The 1973 case Nelson v. Planned Parenthood Center of Tucson established the legality of abortion in Arizona. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the Arizona Revised Statutes 13-211, 13-212, and 13-213, collectively called the Arizona abortion statutes, were unconstitutional. The statutes had made illegal receiving, providing, or advertising abortions. After the Arizona Appeals Court heard the case, it decided that the Arizona abortion statutes were constitutional. However, two weeks later the US Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade (1973) that abortion was constitutional at the federal level. The Arizona court followed the precedent set by the US Supreme Court and amended its decision to rule that the Arizona abortion statutes were unconstitutional. Afterwards, Planned Parenthood, other family planning clinics, and hospitals were legally allowed in Arizona to advertise, discuss, and offer abortions as an option to their patients.

In the 2002 case Simat Corp v. Arizona Health Care Containment System, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the Arizona Health Care Containment System must pay for abortions when they are necessary to preserve the health of pregnant women in the system. In the case, the Court ruled that the Arizona Revised Statutes 35-196.02 and the Arizona Health Care Containment System (AHCCCS) policies, which banned public funds from being used for abortions, were unconstitutional. AHCCCS is Arizona's Medicaid insurance system, which enables low-income residents to receive medical care. The decision in Simat Corp v. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System required AHCCCS to pay for abortions in cases for which pregnancies put women's health at risk, allowing low-income women greater access to therapeutic abortions.

In the 2013 case Isaacson v. Horne, the US Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit ruled that Arizona House Bill (HB) 2036, which prohibited abortions after twenty weeks of gestation, was unconstitutional. The Arizona State Legislature passed the law in 2012, which was then challenged by three physicians who filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that the law violated women's constitutionally protected rights to abortions, rights that may only be infringed once fetuses are viable outside of the womb. In hearing the case, the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals relied on the precedent set by the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade (1973) that ruled that states could not constitutionality prohibit abortions prior to fetal viability at twenty-four weeks. The case Isaacson v. Horne strengthened the precedent in Arizona that laws prohibiting abortion prior to fetal viability are unconstitutional, and it upheld women's rights to decide to terminate their pregnancies prior to fetal viability.

Emmett McLoughlin wrote People's Padre: An Autobiography, based on his experiences as a Roman Catholic priest advocating for the health of people in Arizona. The Beacon Press in Boston, Massachusetts, published the autobiography in 1954. McLoughlin was a Franciscan Order Roman Catholic priest who advocated for public housing and healthcare for the poor and for minority groups in Phoenix, Arizona, during the mid twentieth century. The autobiography recounts McLoughlin's efforts in founding several community initiatives throughout Phoenix, including the St. Monica's Community Center, later renamed St. Pius X Catholic Church, the Phoenix housing projects, and St. Monica's Hospital, later renamed Phoenix Memorial Hospital. McLoughlin's autobiography discusses his advocacy for people to have greater access to maternity and prenatal healthcare, to testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and to birth control in the Phoenix area.

Stephen Jay Gould studied snail fossils and worked at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the latter half of the twentieth century. He contributed to philosophical, historical, and scientific ideas in paleontology, evolutionary theory, and developmental biology. Gould, with Niles Eldredge, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium, a view of evolution by which species undergo long periods of stasis followed by rapid changes over relatively short periods instead of continually accumulating slow changes over millions of years. In his 1977 book, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Gould reconstructed a history of developmental biology and stressed the importance of development to evolutionary biology. In a 1979 paper coauthored with Richard Lewontin, Gould and Lewonitn criticized many evolutionary bioligists for relying solely on adaptive evolution as an explanation for morphological change, and for failing to consider other explanations, such as developmental constraints.

In the spring of 1841, abortionist Ann Lohman, called Madame Restell, was convicted for crimes against one of her abortion clients, Maria Purdy. In a deathbed confession, Purdy admitted that she had received an abortion provided by Madame Restell, and she further claimed that the tuberculosis that she was dying from was a result of her abortion. Restell was charged with administering an illegal abortion in New York and her legal battles were heavily documented in the news. Madame Restell’s arrest was one of many highly publicized altercations with the law she experienced during her forty years as a professional abortion provider. Her trial was one of the first abortion trials in American history. Although the charges against Restell were later dropped due to many minor legal complications, her trial brought attention to the legal controversies surrounding abortion as well as the high likelihood of legal action and convictions of abortion crimes in New York during the 1800s.

In the 1990 case Hodgson v. Minnesota, the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., upheld Minnesota statute 144.343, which required physicians to notify both biological parents of minors seeking abortions forty-eight hours prior to each procedure. The US Supreme Court determined that a state could legally require physicians to notify both parents of minors prior to performing abortions as long as they allowed for a judicial bypass procedure, in which courts could grant exceptions. The Supreme Court’s decision in Hodgson v. Minnesota allowed for the enforcement of Minnesota statute 144.343, which changed minors’ abilities to access abortions in Minnesota by requiring parental notification by a physician forty-eight hours prior to each abortion.

In the 2016 case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the US Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the Texas requirements that abortion providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that abortion facilities meet ambulatory surgical center standards. Whole Woman’s Health represented abortion care providers in Texas and brought the case against the commissioner for the Texas Department of State Health Services, John Hellerstedt. In a five to three decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that the requirements of the challenged law, Texas House Bill 2, had forced the majority of abortion care facilities to close. With fewer available facilities, women faced undue burdens of travel time and cost when seeking abortions, restricting their access abortion care. In previous US Supreme Court cases Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that placing undue burdens on women seeking abortion care was unconstitutional. Upholding those decisions in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the US Supreme Court struck down Texas House Bill 2 and protected women’s access to abortion care.