Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

The few cases available from the early colonial period cor-
roborate  that  abortion  was  a  crime.    See  generally  Del-
lapenna 215–228 (collecting cases).  In Maryland in 1652, 
for  example,  an  indictment  charged  that  a  man  “Mur-
therously endeavoured to destroy or Murther the Child by
him begotten in the Womb.”  Proprietary v. Mitchell, 10 Md. 
Archives 80, 183 (1652) (W. Browne ed. 1891).  And by the 
19th century, courts frequently explained that the common
law made abortion of a quick child a crime.  See, e.g., Smith 
v. Gaffard, 31 Ala. 45, 51 (1857); Smith v. State, 33 Me. 48, 
55 (1851); State v. Cooper, 22 N. J. L. 52, 52–55 (1849); Com-
monwealth v. Parker, 50 Mass. 263, 264–268 (1845). 

c 
The  original  ground  for  drawing  a  distinction  between
pre- and post-quickening abortions is not entirely clear, but
some  have  attributed  the  rule  to  the  difficulty  of  proving
that a pre-quickening fetus was alive.  At that time, there 
were  no  scientific  methods  for  detecting  pregnancy  in  its
early stages,31 and thus, as one court put it in 1872: “[U]ntil
the  period  of  quickening  there  is  no  evidence  of  life;  and 
whatever may be said of the feotus, the law has fixed upon
this  period  of  gestation  as  the  time  when  the  child  is  en-
dowed  with  life”  because  “foetal  movements  are  the  first 
clearly marked and well defined evidences of life.”  Evans v. 
People,  49  N. Y.  86,  90  (emphasis  added);  Cooper,  22 
N. J. L., at 56 (“In contemplation of law life commences at 
the moment of quickening, at that moment when the em-
bryo gives the first physical proof of life, no matter when it 
first received it” (emphasis added)). 

—————— 
594, 595–596, 26 N. W. 291, 292–293 (1886); State v. Moore, 25 Iowa 128, 
131–132 (1868); Smith v. State, 33 Me. 48, 54–55 (1851). 

31 See E. Rigby, A System of Midwifery 73 (1841) (“Under all circum-
stances,  the  diagnosis  of  pregnancy  must  ever  be  difficult  and  obscure 
during the early months”); see also id., at 74–80 (discussing rudimentary
techniques for detecting early pregnancy); A. Taylor, A Manual of Medi-
cal Jurisprudence 418–421 (6th Am. ed. 1866) (same).