Historian Felicia Kornbluh and I mark Roe v. Wade with a conversation about "A Woman's Life Is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Freedom"
Felicia said that historically abortion was not illegal before quickening, which she said was “two-thirds of the way through the pregnancy.” That is inaccurate! It is ONE-third of the way through the pregnancy, approximately in the fourth month. Blackmun used this precedent in establishing the trimester system in Roe.
Felicia said that historically abortion was not illegal before quickening, which she said was “two-thirds of the way through the pregnancy.” That is inaccurate! It is ONE-third of the way through the pregnancy, approximately in the fourth month. Blackmun used this precedent in establishing the trimester system in Roe.