Drafter
Clerk 05/10/2022
Title
A MOTION in support of reproductive freedom and Roe v. Wade.
Body
WHEREAS, the ability to terminate a pregnancy is a fundamental part of reproductive freedom for women, and
WHEREAS, women have sought abortions throughout the history of the United States, from colonial times to today, and
WHEREAS, until the middle of the nineteenth century, abortions before "quickening," which is when the woman can feel the fetus moving, were legal in many states consistent with Common Law, and
WHEREAS, the movement to ban abortions developed over the course of the latter part of the nineteenth century, driven by news stories of women dying as a result of abortion procedures and by an organized effort by male doctors and the American Medical Association, and
WHEREAS, historical evidence suggests that even as states imposed increasing restrictions on abortions, public sentiment supported the right to terminate a pregnancy, especially before quickening, through the nineteenth century, and
WHEREAS, in the 1950s and 1960s, it is estimated there were between 200,000 and 1.2 million women underwent illegal abortions each year in the United States, creating significant risk of injury and death for women, and
WHEREAS, by 1965, illegal abortion accounted for 17 percent of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth; and
WHEREAS, in 1970, Washington state voters approved Referendum 20, making Washington state become the first state to legalize abortion through a vote of the people, and
WHEREAS, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion bans during the first trimester of pregnancy were a violation of a woman's right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the court ruled that "For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's atte...

Click here for full text