First Abortion Conference in the U.S.
Dr. Mary Calderone, medical director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, organized the first-ever national conference on abortion in the U.S. The conference ran for three days (April 15–17) and was held at Arden House, on the estate of the Harriman family near Newburgh, New York.
One factor leading to the conference was the increased news accounts of the thousands of illegal abortions in America. Papers from the conference were published as Abortion in the United States (1958), edited by Calderone.
The first abortion reform laws, liberalizing access to abortion, occurred in Colorado, April 25, 1967; California, June 15, 1967; and New York, April 11, 1970. The Supreme Court declared state criminal abortion laws unconstitutional in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973.
Learn more about the early history of abortion in America: James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–1900 (1978)
Read about the history of sex, censorship, birth control, abortion and homosexuality and the U.S. Constitution: Geoffrey R. Stone, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century (2017)
Learn more at the Planned Parenthood web site: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Read Leigh Ann Wheeler’s essay on how the ACLU took on the abortion issue
Check out a timeline on abortion rights history: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/