In this, the fourth in a series of five pieces derived from my new book, “Sex and the Constitution,” I will briefly address attitudes toward contraception and abortion in the 19th century. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, there were no laws prohibiting either contraception or abortion before quickening (defined as the moment in pregnancy when a woman first feels fetal movement, usually at 4½ months). By the 1870s, approximately 20 percent of all pregnancies were terminated by legal abortion. During this era, advertisements for both contraceptives and abortions services were commonplace.

Daily newspapers regularly ran ads for products that promised to “cure” pregnancy — a euphemism for terminating a pregnancy. Ads for “Cherokee Pills,” for example, promised that if used during the first three months of pregnancy, “the unfailing nature of their action would infallibly prevent pregnance.”

In the 1840s, the flamboyant Ann Lohman Restell, popularly known as “Madame Restell,” was the most famous abortionist in New York City. Born in England, Restell emigrated to America in 1831, where she was forced to make a living as a seamstress. She gradually developed an interest in women’s health, and began selling birth control products such as “preventative pills.” She then turned to abortion and served a genteel, middle- and upper-middle class clientele. She charged between $50 and $100 per abortion. Her abortion business on Greenwich Street proved highly profitable, yielding a considerable fortune and a lush mansion on Fifth Avenue. Madame Restell touted her “celebrated powers for married ladies,” and advertised extensively in the penny press of the day.

Read more at The Washington Post