美国国家公共电台 NPR--Abortion was once common practice in America. A small group of doctors changed that

Abortion¹ was once common practice in America. A small group of doctors changed that

Transcript²

The 50th anniversary of the Roe³ V. Wade⁴ decision is Jan. 22. NPR's podcast Throughline examines the debate about abortion, which wasn't always controversial. (Story aired on ATC on June 6, 2022.)

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

This week, it'll mark 50 years since the Supreme⁵ Court's Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion a constitutionally protected right - at least for 49 years. In U.S. history, though, abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America, it was considered a fairly common practice, a private decision made by women and aided mostly by midwives. But in the mid-1800s, a small group of physicians set out to change that. Led by a zealous⁶ young doctor named Horatio Storer, they launched a campaign to make abortion illegal in every state. Here are hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah from our history podcast Throughline.

RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE⁷: In 1860, governors of every single state in the U.S. received this letter from the recently established American Medical Association.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) The evil to society of this crime is evident from the fact that its instances in this country are now to be counted by hundreds of thousands.

ABDELFATAH: But there was really only one guy holding the pen.

KARISSA HAUGEBERG: Horatio Storer.

ABDELFATAH: Karissa Haugeberg is an associate professor of history at Tulane University. She studied the formation of the anti-abortion movement.

HAUGEBERG: Basically, he ghostwrote a letter from the president of the AMA - so it looked like it was coming from the president, but Storer was actually the one who wrote it - saying that the AMA opposes abortion. And he used the language of morality.

ABDELFATAH: The letter was pivotal to what historians call the physicians' crusade against abortion, and Storer was making a few key arguments for why abortion should be illegal across the country. First, he introduced a new idea.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) The child is alive from the moment of conception.

ABDELFATAH: That life began at conception. Up till now, people generally agreed that life began when a woman could actually feel life move inside her, known then as quickening. But that wasn't enough for Storer. He campaigned on a moral argument that also tapped into the racial fears of the moment, fears that would eventually inspire a pseudoscientific field of, quote, "racial improvement" and planned breeding of the population - American eugenics. These racial fears would inspire forced sterilization⁸ programs to decrease certain populations where Storer's anti-abortion campaign was trying to increase other populations by focusing on...

HAUGEBERG: The birth rate for Protestant white women had been declining over the course of the 19th century. So he had fears of what were commonly - what was commonly referred to as race suicide, that the Anglo stock wasn't going to replenish⁹ itself fast enough to keep up with the swells¹⁰ of new immigrants to the United States.

LESLIE REAGAN: And who is going to have power and populate this country and populate the Great Plains and the Great West?

ABDELFATAH: Leslie Reagan is a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

REAGAN: Well, it is going to be Chinese migrants. It's going to be African Americans, newly freed people, and Catholics. They are not the ones using abortion. It's our, you know, Yankee women who are using abortion, trying to get into medical school, trying to do politics when they should be at home, having babies and taking care of them.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: Michelle Goodwin is a professor at the University of California Irvine in the areas of law and bioethics.

MICHELLE GOODWIN: They began to say, we need white women to use their loins because they're concerned about the Blackening and the browning of what is now - what at that point became the United States and this real concern that, when Black people become free, what will this mean for white people? And white women become a key to that.

ARABLOUEI: So part of Storer's thinking was that criminalizing abortion would help rebalance the scales of who was being born into this country. But there was more to this strategy. He saw this as a way to finally knock out the competition - midwives.

HAUGEBERG: And so if the AMA could wrest¹¹ control over the marketplace of abortion, it would be lucrative¹² to this growing cadre of university-educated, mostly male physicians who are beginning to specialize in things like obstetrics and gynecology.

ARABLOUEI: So midwives were slandered¹³ in this campaign.

GOODWIN: Described as unsanitary, unclean, as immoral¹⁴.

ARABLOUEI: And as clueless as the mothers themselves.

REAGAN: Saying, women do not know. They don't know when they quicken. And really makes fun of women's own sensations and knowledge and says, you know, some of them quicken at one month. Some of them never quicken at all, and then they have a baby.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) They may very constantly be recognized by the physician in cases where no sensation is felt by the mother.

REAGAN: So there's this scoffing¹⁵ at women's knowledge, saying, this is a sin. This is murder. You're killing¹⁶ children.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) By the moral law, the willful killing of a human being at any stage of its existence is murder.

REAGAN: And the general public and women don't get it. They don't know that. And we need to change the laws.

ABDELFATAH: So to help people get it, Storer wrote - articles, books, reports, speeches - all to make his views on abortion and women clear. In one lecture called "The Origins Of Insanity¹⁷ In Women," he advocated for ovariectomies for women who, quote, "have become habitually¹⁸ thievish"...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) Profane¹⁹ or obscene, despondent²⁰ or self-indulgent, shrewish or fatuous²¹.

ABDELFATAH: The solution, as he saw it...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) Remove the cause.

ABDELFATAH: A woman's reproductive organs.

HAUGEBERG: He was really hostile to women.

ABDELFATAH: And that hostility²² was starting to gain traction²³. A few years into the campaign, some states began to pass laws outlawing²⁴ or restricting abortion. Perhaps the harshest was in Connecticut in 1860. The law got rid of the quickening rule and made abortion a crime for which the abortionist and the woman getting the abortion could be fined and jailed. And over the next few decades, most states across the country would adopt similar laws. By 1880, every single state had a law outlawing abortion on the books. These laws launched a century of criminalization.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARTIN JACOBY'S "TOGETHER WE WILL LIVE FOREVER")

MART?NEZ: That was Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei. They're the hosts of NPR's history podcast, Throughline. Sunday will mark 50 years since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

1 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 roe   

n.鱼卵；獐鹿

参考例句：

• We will serve smoked cod's roe at the dinner.宴会上我们将上一道熏鳕鱼子。
• I'll scramble some eggs with roe?我用鱼籽炒几个鸡蛋好吗？

4 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

5 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

6 zealous   

adj.狂热的，热心的

参考例句：

• She made zealous efforts to clean up the classroom.她非常热心地努力清扫教室。
• She is a zealous supporter of our cause.她是我们事业的热心支持者。

7 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

8 sterilization   

n.杀菌，绝育；灭菌

参考例句：

• Sterilization by filtration is subject to one major theoretical limitation. 过滤灭菌具有一个理论上的局限性。 来自辞典例句
• Sterilization is a treatment that frees the treated object of all living organisms. 灭菌处理是从处理对象排除一切生活的生物。 来自辞典例句

9 replenish   

vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满

参考例句：

• I always replenish my food supply before it is depleted.我总是在我的食物吃完之前加以补充。
• We have to import an extra 4 million tons of wheat to replenish our reserves.我们不得不额外进口四百万吨小麦以补充我们的储备。

10 swells   

增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The waters were heaving up in great swells. 河水正在急剧上升。
• A barrel swells in the middle. 水桶中部隆起。

11 wrest   

n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲

参考例句：

• The officer managed to wrest the gun from his grasp.警官最终把枪从他手中夺走了。
• You wrest my words out of their real meaning.你曲解了我话里的真正含义。

12 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

13 slandered   

造谣中伤( slander的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She slandered him behind his back. 她在背地里对他造谣中伤。
• He was basely slandered by his enemies. 他受到仇敌卑鄙的诋毁。

14 immoral   

adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的

参考例句：

• She was questioned about his immoral conduct toward her.她被询问过有关他对她的不道德行为的情况。
• It is my belief that nuclear weapons are immoral.我相信使核武器是不邪恶的。

15 scoffing   

n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽

参考例句：

• They were sitting around the table scoffing. 他们围坐在桌子旁狼吞虎咽地吃着。
• He the lid and showed the wonderful the scoffing visitors. 他打开盖子给嘲笑他们的老人看这些丰富的收获。

16 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

17 insanity   

n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐

参考例句：

• In his defense he alleged temporary insanity.他伪称一时精神错乱，为自己辩解。
• He remained in his cell,and this visit only increased the belief in his insanity.他依旧还是住在他的地牢里，这次视察只是更加使人相信他是个疯子了。

18 habitually   

ad.习惯地，通常地

参考例句：

• The pain of the disease caused him habitually to furrow his brow. 病痛使他习惯性地紧皱眉头。
• Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. 我已经习惯于服从约翰，我来到他的椅子跟前。

19 profane   

adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污

参考例句：

• He doesn't dare to profane the name of God.他不敢亵渎上帝之名。
• His profane language annoyed us.他亵渎的言语激怒了我们。

20 despondent   

adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的

参考例句：

• He was up for a time and then，without warning,despondent again.他一度兴高采烈，但忽然又情绪低落下来。
• I feel despondent when my work is rejected.作品被拒后我感到很沮丧。

21 fatuous   

adj.愚昧的；昏庸的

参考例句：

• He seems to get pride in fatuous remarks.说起这番蠢话来他似乎还挺得意。
• After his boring speech for over an hour,fatuous speaker waited for applause from the audience.经过超过一小时的烦闷的演讲，那个愚昧的演讲者还等着观众的掌声。

22 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

23 traction   

n.牵引；附着摩擦力

参考例句：

• I'll show you how the traction is applied.我会让你看如何做这种牵引。
• She's injured her back and is in traction for a month.她背部受伤，正在作一个月的牵引治疗。

24 outlawing   

宣布…为不合法（outlaw的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Regulations are outlawing certain refrigerants, such as chlorofluorocarbons, which contain ozone-depleting chemicals. 随后出台的政策禁用了部分制冷剂，如破坏臭氧层的氟氯碳化合物。
• An amendment outlawing sale of intoxicating liquors(1920)was repealed in 1933. 规定售卖酒类为非法的一个宪法修正案（一九二○年）在一九三三年被废止。