177 The Christian apologist Athenagoras writes in a letter to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: "All who use abortifacients are homicides and will account to God for their abortions as for the killing of men."
c. 197 Tertullian writes in his Apology: "In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder birth is merely a speedier man-killing; not does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in the seed."
314 The Council of Ancyra decrees that instead of a lifetime excommunication, women who abort should only suffer excommunication for ten years.
c. 375 St. Basil the Great made this famous statement on abortion: "A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible among us."
c. 380 St. Jerome, writing about virgins who betrayed their vows: "Others drink up sterility and perpetrate the murder of an unborn human. Some, after they have realized that they have conceived, turn to poisons of abortion and frequently dying together themselves are led down to hell guilty of three crimes as self-murderers, adulterers against Christ and parricidae of their unborn children."
420 St. Augustine writes in De nuptiis and concupiscentia "[T]his lustful cruelty or cruel lust [reaches the point] that it procures poisons of sterility and, if nothing else has worked, destroys and pours out by some means fetuses conceived in the womb, by wanting its offspring to die before it lives or, if it was already alive in the womb, to be killed before being born. "
c. 420 St. Augustine writes in The Enchiridion that formed fetuses will be resurrected, but the unformed will not; just like seeds that don't germinate, they simply perish.
c. 426 St. Augustine writes in his City of God that he cannot confirm or deny whether aborted fetuses would resurrect. He was not sure how the resurrection would operate if all received the bodies they had in this life.
c. 520 St. Cesarius, Bishop of Arles, writes a letter to the bishops of Gaul stating "Who cannot warn that no woman should take potions so that she is unable to conceive nor should she harm the nature within her which God has wished to be fruitful; because she will be held guilty of as many murders as [children] she had been able to conceive or give birth to and, unless she has undergone a worthy penance, will be condemned to eternal death in hell. A woman who does not want to have children should enter into a religious pact with her husband: for chastity is the only sterility for the Christian woman." (Sermon 1).
529 Code of Justinian (Corpus iuris civilis) issued. This body of law would have a major impact on legal theory throughout the Middle Ages, and its interpretation would be used to argue for and against the criminalization of abortion, depending on the scholar's viewpoint.
546 The Spanish Council of Lerida confers seven years' penitence on adulterers who attempt to have their unborn baby aborted; if they were the poisoners, Communion would only be allowed at death.
576 Death of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris. Shortly after his death, Venantius Fortunatus wrote a Vita, in which he described how the saint survived an abortion attempt by his mother Eusebia, who had conceived him too soon after giving birth, which was considered shameful in late antiquity in Gaul.
589 Spain's Third Council of Toledo records that there are complaints about abortion, and condemns it. King Reccarred, newly converted from Arianism, authorizes judges to investigate and punish it.
643 The Lombard King Rothari issues an edict: "If someone has struck a pregnant slave-girl and caused abortion, he should compensate three solidi. But if she dies from the blow, he shall compensate for her as well as for what died in her womb.’
680 Death of St. Balthild of Ascania wife of King Clovis II. Her Vita was written shortly after her death. She was praised for stamping out the‘impious tendency,by which many people were endeavoring to kill rather than rear their offspring’. The reason for this widespread killing was the heavy tax burden, that she succeeded in having abolished."
690 Julian of Toledo writes his Prognosticum, a compilation of what Church Fathers had to say about death and divine judgement. On the fate of aborted fetuses, he cites Julianus Pomerius, "Of course those who are thrown forth from the womb will be resurrected if they lived, not for judgment but for punishment; because, since they were condemned by Adam’s condemnation, they have not been loosened from the bonds of their damnation. Nonetheless, whether infants are deprived of life in the womb or already born, it is believed that they will be resurrected at that age to which they would certainly have been if they lived, reaching advanced years; because if resurrection will repair nature, nothing will be able to lack the fullness of nature." ("If" is put in there because early conceptions were not thought to have human souls)
847 Archbishop Rabanus of Mainz wrote to a certain Regimbod regarding a violent assault of a woman pregnant with triplets. Two of the babies died in the womb, and the other died shortly after baptism. He qualifies this act as "parricide" and "homicide."
c. 860 Pope Nicholas I addresses a letter to Charles, Archbishop of Mainz in which he writes "women who voluntarily strike out infants conceived from the womb before the fullness of time should without doubt be considered murderers."
c. 887 Pope Stephen I writes in a letter to Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz "if someone who has destroyed what has been conceived in the womb through abortion is a murderer, then by how much less will someone who has killed a little child of even just a day be able to absolve themselves of murder?’"
c. 906 Regino of Prum, a Benedictine abbot, composes De synodabilus causis, a popular manual for bishops He writes "If someone for the sake of satisfying lust or deliberate hatred has done something to a man or woman so that children are not born from him [or her], or has given [something] to drink, so that he [or she] cannot generate or conceive, he [or she] should be regarded as a murderer."
c. 1140 Gratian completes his compilation of canon law. He wrote "He is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body." He does not state when this happens.
c. 1200 In a court case known to history as Agnes' Appeal, Agnes of Lincolnshire, daughter of Saxi brought a case against John of Paris who, while she was in labour, dragged her by the feet and struck her with a pole so that she lost her baby. The defendant wanted a "wager of law" (i.e. a law) rather than a trial by battle. We have no record of the outcome. It was the earliest recorder court case involving prenatal homicide in English history.
1211 Pope Innocent III issues the first papal judgement regarding pre-natal life. He was asked to rule on a case where a priest playfully grabbed his pregnant girlfriend by the belt, causing a miscarriage. The pope responded that if the fetus was alive (re: animated) the priest could no longer say mass, but if the fetus was not alive (i.e. had a soul), he permitted to do so.
1234 Pope Gregory IX issues the first compilation of Canon Law--Decretalia Gregorii Noni-- compiled by Gratian. In it, he states that the abortion of an unformed fetus is a quasi-murder.
c. 1247 Amice, wife of Ralph Gundwine appealed Adam Warner, William Warner and Henry Warner for breaking in her house and beating her until she birthed a dead baby boy eight days later. He was said to be five inches long. The trial by jury resulted in a "not guilty" verdict. The jury believed that it was Amice's own behaviour, not the beating that caused the miscarriage. One of the earliest abortion cases in English history.
c. 1250 English legal commentator Henry de Bracton wrote in his On The Laws and Customs of England: "if one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her a potion in order to procure an abortion, the fetus is already formed or animated, especially if he is animated, he commites homicide."
c. 1256 In a case known as Juliana's Appeal, John de Rechich beat one Juliana daughter of Maynard so that he killed her baby boy in the womb. He was outlawed.
1274 St. Thomas Aquinas dies leaving unfinished his magnum opus The Summe Theologica. He condemned abortion, but basing himself on Aristotle's embryology, he adopted delayed hominization, meaning that he thought the embryo was infused first with a vegetative soul, then a sensitive (animal) soul then a rational (human) soul.
1281 In Rex v. Code, Walter Code, Richard the Potter and his brother Stephen of Winchester are sentenced to prison for having beat Alice, the wife of Adam Prest and provoked a miscarriage of a baby boy 8 inches in length.
1285 In Rex v. Mercer, Emma, wife of Reynold Mercer, was outlawed after being convicted of having fighting with a woman known to history as Alice daughter of Thomas of Nothleigh. Emma threw a stone at Alice who gave birth two days later to a boy who had an injury from the stone. He was one month premature.
c. 1290 The English legal commentator known as "Fleta" wrote: "He, too, in strictness is a homicide who has pressed upon a pregnant woman or has given her poison or has struck her in order to procure an abortion or to prevent conception, if the foetus is already formed and animated, and similarly he who has given or accepted poison with the intention of preventing procreation or conception. A woman also commits a homicide if, by potion or the like, she destroys a quickened child in her womb."
1312 The Council of Vienne defines the rational soul as the form of the body. Some pro-aborts take this to mean that it adopted delayed hominization, but there's no basis for that assertion. Some also say it banned baptism on premature babies-- also untrue.
1320 Johannes de Regina, a professor at a Dominican convent in Naples, writes the first medieval monograph on "therapeutic abortion" (i.e. for medical purposes.) He concluded that it was permissible for an unanimated fetus to be aborted on grounds of necessity, but not at any under time or under any other circumstance.
1321 In Rex v. Haule, Maud de Haule is reported to have been hanged for having thrown Joan of Hallynghurst out of her own house and provoked a miscarriage ten weeks before her due date.
1340 Jurist Signorolus Homodeis of Milan publishes his Consilium primum and becomes the first legal commentator in the Christian era to ignore predominant religious ideas about the unborn and conclude that a fetus is not legally a human being, basing himself on ancient legal sources and a Stoic perspective on human life.
c. 1348 English secular courts stop prosecuting beatings that lead to miscarriages on the grounds that the victims have no name (as the victim would not have been baptized.) Without a name of a victim, legal proceedings could not go forth.
c. 1387 Geoffrey Chaucer writes that one who "maketh a woman outher bareyne by drinkage venemouse herbes, ... or sleeth a child by drinkes willfully,...yet it is a homicyde."
1450 Jurist John of Naples in his Quodlibeta-- an unpublished work-- writes that a doctor should give a woman an abortifacient to save her life if he is certain the fetus is unformed. St. Antoninus of Florence would approve of this measure. There is much opposition to the suggestion.
1490 The oldest known secular trial for abortion in Italy takes place in Venice. Clara de Arbo confessed to have hidden her pregnancy and buried her miscarried baby of five or six months. She was sentenced to be flogged and exposed on a podium for six hours wearing a pointed hat of shame.
1491 The first illustration of a fetus in a printed book, Fasciculus medicinae. Originally, it was authored by Johannes de Ketham, a German physician, but the printed version was published by Sebastiano Manilo in Italian translation
c. 1510 Leonardo da Vinci produces the first accurate representation of a human foetus. It would not be exhibited until the late 1770s.
1513 Physician Eucharius Rosslin (1470-1526) writes the first midwife manual in the vernacular. There would be 100 editions in several languages for the next two centuries. It was the first obstetrics book in print.
1530 William Wodlake of Middlesex is charged with having raped fourteen-year-old Katherine Alaund and then tricking her into taking a poisonous drink to kill her unborn child. He died before the trial.
1532 The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina is promulgated and makes abortions a capital crime for women in the Holy Roman Empire.
1542 Martin Luther publishes "Comfort for Women Who Have Had a Miscarriage" assuring readers that an unbaptized unborn child is in heaven.
1556 A French royal edict requires all unmarried women to make an official declaration of their pregnancy. Women who aborted or committed infanticide often hid their pregnancies and this measure was implemented to reduce the incidence of those crimes. It also decreed the death penalty for all women whose babies died before baptism after a concealed pregnancy.
1557 Common Lawyer William Staunford's treatise The Pleas of the Crown asserts that the killing of the unborn never warranted intervention by the King's Courts.
1588 Pope Sixtus V tried to discourage abortion by making all abortions excommunicable with absolution reserved to The Holy See. He also imposed the death penalty on both women and abortionists.
1591 Pope Gregory XIV rescinds the harsh penalties for abortion imposed by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 and makes absolution to the bishop the norm, although in practice it was often delegated to the priest. He also restores the distinction between formed and unformed fetuses.
1603 Johannes Harpprecht concludes in his Tractatus Criminalis: Commentaria that animation began at insemination-- basing himself on the traducian viewpoint. In reviving traducianism, he challenged successive animation, the Aristotelian perspective that had dominated the viewpoint on abortion since the Middle Ages.
1604 Fabricius Acquapendente publishes De formatio foetu. He is considered the father of embryology. He used dissection to study animal fetuses.
1620 Thomas Fienus publishes De formatrice fetus liber in which he states that the fetus is animated by the third day, rejecting the Aristotelian model of ensoulment.
1620 Paolo Zacchia publishes Questiones medico-legales argues that a fetus has a rational soul from conception. He would become the Proto-Physician of the Roman State in 1644.
1624 England passes "An Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children" to combat infanticide.
1635 Rex v. Powell, the earliest known abortion case in colonial America, is tried in Virginia. Its outcome is unknown.
1642 Moralist Juan de Lugo argues that an early abortion was more dangerous than bringing a child to term in his work Justice and Right.
1644 English embryologist and Catholic Kenelm Digby published Two Treatises, in the One of Which, The Nature of Bodies; in the Other, the Nature of Mans Soule is Looked into. He argues for an epigenetic view of generation. He posits that parts of the embryo are inside that sperm. They are grown inside the womb when external agents-- such as the amniotic fluid-- act on the conceptus. He theorized that the embryo would be nourished by fluids and the atoms of external agents and thus those organs would grow according to the substance that was absorbed by the body.
1651 In his work, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium, William Harvey makes his famous conclusion: Ex ovo omnia. Everything comes from an egg. For the first time, science recognizes the role of the ovum in reproduction. Its discussion of birth would make it the first book on obstetrics written by an Englishman. One of the most perplexing question it raised about the unborn was how they could survive in womb without respiration. It came to be known as "Harvey's question."
1651 Nathaniel Highmore publishes The History of Generation in which he argues that atoms that contribute to generation are present throughout the body, and contribute to the creation of the embryo. This theory would be known as pangenesis. It is the first book of embryology published from the atomist viewpoint.
1666 Robert Boyle exposes embryos of different ages to wine and ammonia, showing it was possible to preserve them.
1667 English anatomist Walter Needham is the first to report chemical experiments on mammalian embryos in Disquisitio anatomica de formato foetu. It involved subjecting embryonic fluids to coagulation and distillation and then analyzing them.
1668 Francesco Redi partially refutes belief in spontaneous generation by demonstrating that flies are created from eggs.
1668 The first recorded use of the Mauriceau syringe, a device invented to baptize fetuses in danger of death during labour.
1669 Jan Swammerdam publishes his Historia Insectorum Generalis, showing continuity of species in the four stages of life of insects: egg, larva, pupa adult. He claimed that all insects came from an egg, and is considered the founder of preformationism (ovism in particular, as there were at least two kinds of preformationism.)
1671 In his Anthropogeniae Iconographia, Theodor Kerckring affirms to have seen an embryo of three or four days, the size of a black cherry, with a well-formed body. Such misperceptions would plague the history of embryology His affirmation was met with skepticism, but it contributed to the belief in preformationism. The drawings of these embryos would be reproduced in other learned publications.
1671 Midwife Jane Sharp publishes a midwife manual, the first medical work written by a woman.
1672 Regnier de Graaf discovers what he thinks are ova, but are in fact the Graafian follicle, the sac that contains the ovum. His discovery helps further the acceptance of preformationism, that is, the belief that the embryo is already preformed before fertilization.
1673 Marcello Malpighi publishes his seminal work De formation de pulli in ovo in which he describes the formation of the early chick embryo. He claimed to have seen a small chick soon after fertilization. His work became the basis for ovist preformationism for the next 100 years.
1674 Oratorian Nicolas Malebranche publishes Concerning the Search for Truth, a philosophical work that touches upon a wide variety of subjects. Although his work did not directly deal with reproduction, it was widely read and he popularized the notion of ovist preformationism.
1674 John Mayow publishes Tractatus Quinque medico-physici, which is devoted to the question of fetal respiration in the womb. He is the first scientist to realize that oxygen (which he called "nitro-aerial vapour") is necessary for preserving a living animal, which leads him to wonder how a fetus could survive in the womb surrounded by liquid and unable to breathe. He concludes that oxygen is carried in the blood through the umbilical cord to the unborn child.
c. 1676 Matthew Hale, writing in Pleas of the Crown, echoing Sir Edward Coke, wrote "If a woman quick with child take a potion to kill it, and accordingly it is destroyed without being born alive, a great misprision, but no Felony; but if born alive, and after dies of that potion, it is murder." A misprision was a crime above a misdemeanour and below a felony.
1677 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovers spermatozoa. He theorizes that embryos pre-exist in them, a theory known as animaculism or spermatism.
1679 Pope Innocent XI condemns two abortion-related opinions. One is that of Thomas Sanchez who said that abortion of an unanimated fetus to save the honour of a woman was acceptable. The other was from Joannis Marcus proto-physician of Bohemia who said that a fetus did not have a rational soul until birth.
1683 Rex v. Allen: A Rhode Island woman is sentenced to 15 lashes for fornication and attempted abortion.
1690 Justine Siegemund publishes the first midwifery book by a woman in German.
1701 Father Gaëtano Giulio Zummo, alias Zumbo, begins to produce wax models of the unborn. Wax figurines were crucial in transmitting images and knowledge about the unborn.
1701 Pope Clement XI makes the Feast of the Immaculate Conception a universal feast, reinforcing the notion that life begins at conception.
1703 Guillaume Desnouës, a rival to Zumbo, opens a studio to create wax figures, including those of the unborn.
1714 First successful surgical abortion observed by naturalist Philippe-Laurent de Joubert and recorded in Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie in 1766. De Joubert considered the operation a medical oddity.
1733 The Doctors of the Sorbonne recommend intrauterine baptism in cases where the labour is difficult and the child is in danger of death.
1742 Pope Benedict XIV establishes Italy's first anatomy museum at the Institute of Science in Bologna, featuring numerous models including 200 life-sized models in wax and terracotta of the female reproductive system, including the uterus with unborn child inside. The modelist, Anna Morandi Manzolini, was known throughout Europe for her models and she was appointed by the pope to be a university lecturer in anatomy.
1745 Francesco Cangiamila, a Catholic priest, publishes Sacred Embryology regarding religious duties to the unborn. He advocated for in utero baptism if the baby was in danger of death during labour, and the performance of a c-section on a dead mother in order to baptize the baby. The priest was expected to do the surgery in the absence of a surgeon, and the author gaves instructions on how to do it.
1746 Le Comte de Buffon posits the existence of "organic molecules" that come from each parent and contribute to the development of the embryo.
1749 King Charles III of Spain issues a decree requiring a c-section be performed on any dead woman suspected of pregnancy in order to baptize the unborn child.
1752 Johnannes Fatio gives the first written account of a successful attempt to separate conjoined twins. The twins, Elisabeth and Catharina were born November 23, 1689. They were operated on at age 9 days. Such an operation would not be repeated until the 20th century.
1759 Caspard Frederic Wolff posits that both male and female contribute to the creation of the embryo, reviving the epigenetic perspective on generation.
1759 The title character of Laurence Sterne's Tristam Shandy narrates about his character from the fetal point of view.
1762 Charles Bonnet publishes his Considérations sur les corps organisés, modifying preformationist theory by positing germs of life, which exist everywhere in nature-- the air, water and soil. Only when they exist inside an animal and are spurred by fertilization do they grow.
1770 Surgeon and sculptor André Pierre Pinson presents his first wax models for anatomical study. His fetal models were veritable works of art.
1774 The Hunter brothers demonstrate that maternal and fetal circulation are completely separate in The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus Explained by Figures, an anatomical atlas.
1776 The first successful attempt at artificial insemination in humans in recorded history. Surgeon John Hunter instructed a man with hypospadias on how to impregnate his wife using a syringe.
1782 In his treatise on difficult labour, Georges Herbiniaux describes a lever-syringe, an instrument used to baptize babies in utero in case of a difficult delivery.
1791 The Code pénal de France makes abortion a homicide punishable by 20 years imprisonment.
1794 First successful c-section performed in America by Dr. Jesse Bennett of Mason County, (West) Virginia. He operated on his wife Elizabeth.
1799 German anatomist Samuel Thomas Soemmering (1755-1830) publishes a plate with 17 unborn babies, ages 3 week to 4 months in Icones Embryonum Humanorum, the first attempt to visually show the morphological changes of the unborn.
1803 The Offences Against the Person Act, aka Lord Ellenborough's Act is the first law to criminalize abortion by Statute in the United Kingdom.
1804 King Charles IV of Spain issues a decree requiring that no dead pregnant woman be buried before a c-section was performed in order to ensure the baptism of the unborn child.
1810 New Brunswick passes a law criminalizing abortion based on Lord Ellenborough's Act of 1803.
1818 The fetal heart is heard in the womb for the first time.
1819 René Laennec invents the stethoscope, the only instrument capable of gaining data on the unborn child at the time.
1821 Connecticut becomes the first U.S. State to legislate on abortion. It bans ingestive abortions, but not surgical ones.
1824 Jean-Louis Prévost and Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas successfully fertilize frogs' eggs, proving that semen and eggs were involved in reproduction.
1827 Discovery of the ovum by Karl Ernst von Baer.
1828 UK: The Offences Against the Person Act of 1828 criminalizes surgical abortions.
1829 New York passes its first abortion law.
1830 David Nagle confirms a twin pregnancy for the first time using a stethoscope.
1833 Evory Kennedy of Dublin publishes Observations on Obstetric Auscultation, describing the use of the stethoscope to confirm pregnancy, including twin pregnancy. He was the first to recognize that an irregular heartbeat was a sign of a problem with the unborn child.
1836 Prince Edward Island passes a law criminalizing abortion, based on Lord Ellenborough's Act of 1803
1837 UK: The Offences Against the Person Act of 1837 removes mention of "quickening" making no distinctions between younger and older fetuses.
1837 Newfoundland passes a law criminalizing abortion, and like the Offences Against the Person Act of 1837 (UK) drops any mention of "quickening."
1838 Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff describes mammalian fertilization.
1839 Charles Knowlton, MD. publishes the fourth edition of The Fruits of Philosophy, which plainly described reproduction for a lay audience and advocated for contraception. In it, he argued that since the fetus was attached to the woman, it had no rights.
1839 Charles Knowlton, MD. publishes the fourth edition of The Fruits of Philosophy, which plainly described reproduction for a lay audience and advocated for contraception. In it, he argued that since the fetus was attached to the woman, it had no rights.
1840 Maine becomes the first U.S. to ban all abortions at any gestational stage.
1840 New York makes self-abortion a misdemeanour.
1842 Ann Lohman aka Madame Restell, America's most notorious abortionist is prosecuted for the first time.
1845 The new Russian legal code calls abortion "premeditated murder."
1845 Physician and sex ed lecturer Frederick Hollick publishes a book entitled The Origin of Life. In it, he argues that the "child" is "part of the woman's body", receiving blood from the mother, even though the Hunter brothers had proven that mother and child had separate blood circulation in 1774.
1845 Physician and sex ed lecturer Frederick Hollick publishes a book entitled The Origin of Life. In it, he argues that the "child" is "part of the woman's body", receiving blood from the mother, even though the Hunter brothers had proven that mother and child had separate blood circulation in 1774.
1846 A thousand people rally in front of the house of notorious abortionist Madame Restell in Boston.
1847 Scottish Obstetrician James Simpson is the first to use chloroform during childbirth.
1848 Dr. Thomas Radford publishes The Value of the Embryonic and Foetal Life: Legally, Socially and Obstetrically Considered. He complains that many abortions are performed because so many are ignorant of the fact that a human life exists from conception.
1849 Rebecca Smith is hanged for murdering her child in England. She is the last woman executed for that crime.
1849 New Brunswick criminalizes self-abortion.
1850 California bans abortion advertizing.
1853 Queen Victoria gives birth painlessly to Prince Leopold while using chloroform, leading to its widespread use and acceptance.
1854 Hugh Lenox Lodge, one of the most prominent obstetricians in America, publishes On Criminal Abortion, a lecture to his students, insisting that the embryo is a human being from conception, and that doctors have a duty to protect the unborn.
1855 Rudolf Virchow publishes his cell theory in which he asserts that all life comes from cells, and all cells come from other cells. His theory eliminated any need for a "life force."
1857 The American Medical Association appoints Horatio Robinson Storer as head of their Criminal Abortion Committee. He would be instrumental in promoting pro-life thought.
1861 UK: The Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 criminalizes virtually all abortions in the realm.
1861 William His Sr. publishes The Anatomy of the Human Embryo, a major work of three volumes; along with the books were sold wax models of embryos as well as several glass plates depicting the unborn. He improved on Soemering's drawings from 1799 and measured embryos to establish size norms for the purpose of dating embryos.
1866 Catholic Monk Gregor Mendel publishes his only scientific article "Experiments on Plant Hybridization", in Brno, launching the science of genetics. It would only garner interest at the turn of the 20th century.
1867 Horatio Robinson Storer pubilshes Why Not? A Book for Every Woman -- explaining the nature and dangers of abortion. It was widely distributed.
1869 Pope Pius IX removes distinction between formed and unformed babies in abortion cases. All abortions are now excommunicable offenses.
1869 The Canadian House of Commons prohibits all abortions, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
1872 Britain passes The Infant Life Preservation Act to fight infanticide, which was a relatively common practice to deal with unwanted babies. It criminalized the concealment of birth.
1872 New York state makes self-abortion a felony. This statute would be modified in 1942 to grant immunity to women who co-operated with law enforcement.
1875 Oscar Hertwig observes fertilization in sea urchins, confirming that generation requires fusion of two gametes.
1876 Swiss obstetrician Paul Zweifel demonstrates that the unborn child consumes oxygen in utero. His discovery launches the modern era of research into fetal physiology.
1879 Hermann Fol observes fertilization between a human sperm and an egg, the first time in recorded history.
1880 Wilhelm His publishes the first detailed description of embryonic development.
c. 1880 Thorolf Hager invents the dilator making it possible to perform dilation and curettage, originally used to treat septic abortions.
1882 The world's first birth control clinic is opened in The Netherlands.
1883 British amateur scientist Francis Galton coins the word "eugenics" in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Their Development.
1884 Judge (later Justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes jr. introduces the concept of fetal viability in American jurisprudence in Dietrich v. Inhabitants of Northampton. He rules that a child cannot sue for injuries incurred in the womb.
1884 Eduard Strasberger and Oscar Hertwig describe the fusion of male and female pronuclei, providing further evidence for conception as the beginning of life.
c. 1890 Dilation and curettage begins to be used for pregnancy termination. This procedure will be used more commonly by physicians and non-physicians after World War I.
1892 French obstetrician Adolphe Pinard founds Le Refuge de l'Avenue du Maine in Paris-- a shelter for destitute women. He applies his novel concept-- "puériculture intrautérine"-- prenatal care with the object of improving the health of the unborn. Destitute women were cared for and he proved that prenatal care led to healthier baby.
1905 Embryologist Edmund Beecher Wilson discovers the X-Y chromosome system of sex determination. He was consumed by the question of how could a whole individual be contained inside one cell.
1911 Dr. William Robinson gives one of the first recorded talks advocating for legalized elective abortion in America. So great was the public animus against abortion that it would not be published until 20 years later.
1913 The new Russian legal code specifies that a "mother guilty of killing her fetus" was subject to up to three years of "reform school" regardless of the reason.
1914 American Franklin Paine Mall of Johns Hopkins University establishes the 23 Carnegie stages of embryonic development.
1916 Armenouhie Tashjian Lamson publishes My Birth: The Autobiography of an Unborn Infant, a popular novel recounting a baby's life in the womb. The female author was an Armenian immigrant, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and a director of a prenatal clinic in Seattle. She was also the Washington State director of The National Woman's Party.
1916 Maryland passes The Six Months Law. It required that mothers and babies not be separated from one another until six months after birth. This measure was to prevent babies being given over to baby farms, where 75 to 95 per cent of the babies died from neglect.
1917 The Catholic Church publishes The Code of Canon Law in which it states all procured abortion incurs automatic excommunication. It also requires baptism in the womb of the mother but only if he cannot be born the normal way. If the mother died in labour, the fetus was to be extracted from thew womb. Aborted fetuses were to be baptized conditionally.
1920 The Soviet Union breaks with global consensus on and legalizes abortion on demand so that women could be "free" to work. The communist association with abortion would stigmatize it for many decades. It would also legitimize abortion somewhat, making its legality seem plausible.
1922 Britain passes The Infanticide Act.
1925 During the Scopes-Monkey trial, embryologists invoke the tail of human embryos as proof that humans are descended from monkeys.
1927 The "A-Z test" aka the "rabbit test" is developed. It was the first test able to confirm pregnancy. A woman's urine was injected into an immature female rabbit. Once the rabbit died, the ovaries were examined. If ovulation had been induced, then pregnancy was confirmed. Other animals like frogs and mice could also be used. It's a popular misconception that the rabbit only died if the woman was pregnant, when in fact, dissection was necessary in every case.
1929 UK: The Infant Life (Preservation) Act criminalizes killing a child during the birthing process. The only exception was to save the life of the mother. It introduces the concept of "fetal viability" into British Law, setting it at 28 weeks.
1930 At the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion becomes the first Protestant denomination to approve of contraception. Its approval was coupled with an affirmation against abortion.
1931 Pope Pius XI publishes Casti Connubi, condemning abortion and contraception.
1931 Mexico legalizes abortion in cases of rape
1932 Neuroanatomist Davenport Hooker performed experiments on non-viable babies born alive from both spontaneous and induced abortions. He filmed his experiments on neurological response and in 1933 produced the first film depicting fetal activity called Early Fetal Human Activity. The project to document neurological response from aborted fetuses lasted until 1958.
1933 Dr. Abraham Rongy, a Russian immigrant to the United States, publishes Abortion: Legal or Illegal? One of the first books advocating for legalized abortion. It does not provoke widespread discussion on the matter. It argued that abortion laws were a failure, just like Prohibition.
1933 Dr. William J. Robinson, a humanist, publishes The Law Against Abortion: Its Perniciousness Demonstrated and Its Repeal Demanded by the Eugenics Publishing Company. He argued that abortion was wrong, but it does not end the beginning of human life, and he argued that the use of contraceptives would make it rare.
1933 The Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago features exhibit showing the unborn in jars from various stages of development. 40 babies were on display. It was the largest medical exhibit of its kind. Carnivals routinely featured fetuses in jars, but they were considered freakish and possibly fraudulent.
1934 The Episcopal Church endorses contraception in the hope that it would reduce the number of abortions.
1934 Joseph Needham publishes his History of Embryology. It would later go through another edition in 1959.
1935 Iceland is the first western country to legalize abortion.
1936 The Soviet Union prohibits abortion on demand to strengthen the family.
1936 The Abortion Law Reformation Association is founded in the UK. It's the first group dedicated to liberalizing abortion laws.
1938 Rex v. Bourne: Dr. Alec Bourne is acquitted of having performed an abortion on a 14-year-old victim of gang rape. It was justifiable to preserve the mental health of the woman. In effect, this ruling legalized abortion in Common Law countries.
1938 The beginning of an ambitious project to collect the earliest embryos possible, dubbed "The Egg Hunt" at Boston's Free Hospital for Women. It was led by John Rock and Arthur Tremaine Hertig. Rock would perform elective hysterectomies knowing that embryos might be implanted in them, and then his assistant would extract embryos in the pathology lab. 34 embryos were found in 211 patients, ranging from ages 30 hours to 17 days. The willing patients had been encouraged to engage intercourse without contraceptives.
1938 Margaret Shea Gilbert publishes Biography of the Unborn, a popular account of the beginnings of human life, written in the first person.
1939 Dr. George Glenn introduces a bill in the Colorado legislature to legalize abortion, but it is never passed.
1939 The first therapeutic abortion committee is established at Harper Hospital in Detroit.
1940 Japan legalizes "medically necessary" abortions.
1942 Alan Guttmacher, chief of obstetrics at Baltimore's Sinai Hospital calls for legalized abortion on eugenic grounds at the annual meeting of The Birth Control Federation of America (the precursor to Planned Parenthood). It does not garner much support.
1944 First in vitro fertilisation of a human embryo by Dr. John Rock and his lab technician Miriam Menkin, the culmination of six years of attempts.
1944 The Department of Embryology of the Carnegie Institution in Washington had collected and catalogued 10 000 embryos, the largest collection of its kind.
1944 Embryologist George W. Corner publishes Ourselves Unborn, describing human development in layman's terms. His discoveries on female hormones led to the development of the contraceptive pill, but ironically he was traditionalist in morality.
1946 Bonbrest v. Katz overruled Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes jr. in Dietrich v. Northampton (1884). A viable baby born alive could sue for injuries suffered in the womb.
1948 The World Medical Association adopts The Declaration of Geneva, also known as the Nuremberg Code. It states "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception."
1948 Japan passes The Eugenics Protection Law, effectively allowing abortion on demand.
1950 The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) allows abortion when the the life or health of the mother is threatened, or if one of the parents suffers from a genetic disease.
1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discover DNA. The existence of DNA would form an important argument for pro-lifers in establishing the separate existence of the unborn child.
1954 First electrocardiography of an unborn child recorded in the United States.
1954 The polio vaccine is developed from a polio virus cultured in the kidney cells of an aborted baby.
1955 The USSS legalizes abortion on demand for the second time.
1956 Ian Donald and Tom Brown invent the first ultrasound in Scotland.
1956 Law professor Glanville Williams appears at the Carpenter Lectures at the Columbia School of Law, issuing the first serious challenge of existing abortion law in the United States. He rejected fetal personhood before 28 weeks on the grounds that EEG was impossible before then. He was subsequently proven to be wrong.
1956 Communist Poland legalizes abortion.
1957 China allows abortion in the first three months of pregnancy.
1958 Jerome Lejeune of France discovers that Down Syndrome is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. Though he received many distinctions, his pro-life advocacy would cost him the Nobel Prize.
1959 The influential American Law Institute drafts The Model Penal Code, a proposal to legalize abortion for rape and health reasons. Its proposal would become a model for the decriminalization of abortion at the state level throughout the 1960s.
1959 Joan Finnigan published "Should Canada change its abortion law?" in Chatelaine magazine.
1961 Canada's The Globe and Mail and The United Church Observer endorse abortion law reform.
1961 Two Canadians, Ernest McCulloch and James Till discover transplantable stem cells, founding the science of stem cell research.
1962 Sherri Finkbine, host of Romper Room, is denied an abortion in the United States. She had wanted an abortion because she feared her baby had been affected by Thalidomide. She flies to Sweden to abort. Her case generated a lot of attention for the reform of abortion laws.
1962 Geraldine Lux Flanagan authors The First Nine Months of Life, the first pregnancy book of its kind showing in detail the development of the unborn child. The pictures were taken from films of Davenport Hooker's experiments on live fetuses (see 1933.)
1963 The Unitarian Universalist Association becomes the first religious group to endorse The Model Penal Code, a proposal to legalize abortion for rape and health indications.
1963 Biologist Garrett Hardin is the first to publicly voice repeal of all abortion laws on the basis that "a woman has the right to control her own body."
c. 1963 A rubella epidemic triggers discussion of abortion law reform, to prevent the birth of babies born blind from rubella. Tissue from babies aborted for this reason are used to develop a rubella vaccine.
1963 The Canadian Bar Association and The Canadian Medical Association campaign to legalize the clandestine abortions already occurring.
1963 Ontario's Attorney General Arthur Wishart develops policy to selectively enforce the abortion law.
1963 New Zealand fetologist William Liley performs the first successful procedure on a fetus, a blood transfusion to combat Rh incompatibility. The needle procedure he developed would later be adopted by abortionists to perform saline abortions.
1963 Prominent embryologist Bent G. Boving argues that conception should be defined as implantation, not fertilization.
1965 The New York Times endorses The Model Penal Code.
1965 CBS News broadcasts a documentary entitled Abortion and the Law which implicitly supports abortion law reform.
1965 Playboy is the first large-circulation magazine to call for the abolition of all abortion laws.
1965 Griswold v. Connecticut legalizes the sale of contraceptives to married couples according to a newfound "right to privacy". This right would be used to argue in favour of abortion in Roe v. Wade. (June 7, 1965.)
1965 Life magazine publishes a series of pictures by photographer Lennert Nilsson showing unborn children are various stages of development. These pictures would become iconic and are commonplace in pro-life literature to this day. (April 30th, 1965).
1965 The end of the Second Vatican Council. Although it reaffirmed its opposition to abortion, the buzz surrounding it gave Catholics the impression that following church doctrine was no longer obligatory, which weakened support for the protection of human life. (December 7, 1965).
1965 The Right to Life League of California is founded on December 8th. Its function was to separate pro-life lobbying from the Church. Ironically it was founded by Cardinal James McIntyre of Los Angeles and its board was made up of Catholic lawyers and doctors. Its organization would become the model for the National Right to Life Committee and state pro-life organizations across America.
1966 Americans for Democratic Action become the first institution to publicly support repeal of all abortion laws.
1966 October 29th: The National Organization of Women holds its founding convention. Abortion was not on the agenda.
1967 Colorado becomes the first state to liberalize abortion for health reasons or rape.
1967 Britain passes The Abortion Act of 1967. Although it was never meant to create abortion on demand, it effectively does in practice.
1967 John D. Rockefeller is the keynote speaker at an abortion conference at Hot Springs, Virginia and is the first famous American to call for the repeal of all abortion laws.
1967 American Civil Liberties Union supports abortion on demand for the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy.
1967 NOW approves abortion on demand. Dissenters organize the Women's Equity Action League.
1967 The Canadian Medical Association endorses liberalizing abortion in cases of rape and to address the life and health of the mother.
1967 Dr. Philip Cooper of The Emergency Organization for the Defence of the Unborn makes a presentation to House of Commons in Ottawa about the prospect of liberalizing abortion. He predicts that it would open the door to eugenic abortion, abortion on demand and euthanasia.
1968 Founding of the National Right to Life Committee by Fr. James McHugh.
1968 Planned Parenthood reverses its policy on abortion and now supports it.
1968 New York Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller appoints The Froesel Commission, which helped cement support for repeal of abortion laws.
1968 The American Public Health Association calls for repeal of all abortion laws.
1968 The ACLU calls for the repeal of all abortion laws.
1968 Pope Paul VI issues Humanae Vitae, best remembered for prohibiting artificial contraception, but also in condemning abortion.
1968 Louise Summerhill founds Birthright in Toronto to help pregnant women choose life.
1968 The Southern Baptist Convention votes to endorse legal abortion in the first trimester.
1968 The Royal Commission for the Status of Women recommends that abortion be legal in Canada in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
1969 Canada decriminalizes abortion. Section 251 of the Criminal Code is modified to permit abortion with the approval of a hospital therapeutic abortion committee.
1969 Henry Morgentaler begins performing abortions in Montreal.
1969 National Council of Jewish Women supports abortion law reform.
1969 Planned Parenthood endorses repeal of all abortion laws.
1969 National Abortion Rights Action League founded.
1969 Eight million American women are now on The Birth Control Pill. It had been approved in 1960.
1969 Redstockings-- women who think NOW isn't radical enough on abortion-- organize the first "speak out" in Manhattan, where they recount their abortions without shame.
1970 New York legalizes abortion on demand up to the 24th week of pregnancy.Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state pass similar laws.
1970 The American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and the Young Women's Christian Association support liberalizing abortion.
1970 The American Medical Association supports abortion for social and economic indications.
1970 According to the CDC, California has an abortion rate of 135 per 1000 births.
1970 In People v. Belous, the California Supreme Court rule that the state's abortion law is unconstitutional, and that any abortion performed by a physician is, de facto, medically necessary.
c. 1970 Physicians begin performing prostaglandin abortions in the second trimester.
1970 In the first year after legalizing abortion, there are 11 000 legal abortions in Canada.
1970 Carl F. Henry, Editor of Christianity Today, encourages Evangelicals to become involved in the right to life movement. At this time, Protestant Christians were mostly on the sidelines on this issue.
1970 Dr. William Liley and Pat Dunn found the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in New Zealand. William Liley was a unique figure in the right to life movement in that he was an agnostic.
1971 In United States vs. Vuitch, the Supreme Court defines "health" to mean psychological well-being, preparing the way for abortion on demand.
1971 The NRLC holds its first convention at Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota.
1971 The United Church of Christ supports abortion law reform.
1971 New York lowers the gestational limit on abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks. It also prohibits public funding.
1971 Abortion is legalized in India.
1971 France: 343 women sign a petition published in Le Nouvel Observateur claiming that they had had an abortion, daring the French government to prosecute them. It was known as Le Manifeste des 343.
1972 Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller of New York vetoes attempt to repeal The Abortion Act of 1970 after the legislature has adjourned, avoiding a major political battle.
1972 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that barring sales of contraception to the unmarried was unconstitutional.
1973 Roe v. Wade nullifies state abortion laws, removing all protection for the unborn.
1973 Coalition for Life is founded in Canada. They are a precursor of Campaign Life Coalition.
1974 January 22. The first March for Life is held in Washington D.C.
1974 Canadian Abortion Rights Action League is founded.
1974 West Germany tries to liberalize its abortion law, but the Federal Constitutional Court declares it unconstitutional as the law did not adequately protect fetal life.
1974 The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issues "Declaration on Procured Abortion", which declares that human life must be respected from conception, that is from the time the sperm fertilizes an ovum.
1974 Denmark's Lutheran state Church accepts the legalization of abortion.
1975 The Canadian Supreme Court upholds conviction of Henry Morgentaler.
1975 La Loi Veil in France allows abortion for the first ten weeks of pregnancy, all the while claiming to guarantee respect for life from conception.
1976 The Hyde Amendment is passed. It bars federal tax funding of abortion.
1976 The Federal Justice Minister sets aside the Supreme Court ruling and orders a new trial for Henry Morgentaler. Quebec eventually drops all charges against him.
1976 In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, the Supreme Court strikes down a law that required abortionists to use the technique most likely to produce a live birth.
1976 Ellen McCormack runs for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was a housewife fringe candidate who garnered enough money and support to fund pro-life commercials that were seen in primetime by tens of millions of American viewers.
1976 Henry Morgentaler's loses his Quebec medical license for a year due to unhygenic practices.
1977 In Maher v. Roe, Beal v. Doe, and Poelker v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that federal and state governments are under no obligation to fund abortion in public assistance programs,
1978 Louise Brown is born in England. She is the first live-born baby produced through in vitro fertilisation.
1978 Campaign Life is founded in Canada.
1979 Bernard Nathanson, founder of NARAL, and convert to the pro-life cause, publishes Aborting America, which exposes lies used by pro-abortion forces.
1979 China adopts its infamous one-child policy. Chinese couples may only have one child. Forced abortions and sterilizations become routine.
1979 The Rev. Jerry Falwell founds The Moral Majority, a Christian Right organization that mobilized on a number of culture-of-life issues, including abortion.
1980 June 30. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Hyde amendment in Harris vs. McRae.
1980 November 4. Pro-lifer Ronald Reagan wins the U.S. election.
1980 The editor of The Catholic Register is fired after allowing a full-page ad from Campaign Life predicting that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would lead to gay marriage. It was dismissed by religious leaders as baseless fear-mongering.
1981 Jessie Mae Jefferson becomes the first American woman ordered to have a c-section against her will. Her placenta covered her cervix, but she believed in faith healing and didn't want doctors to intervene. She gave birth vaginally to a healthy baby.
1982 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is signed into law. The rights of the unborn are completely ignored and unacknowledged.
1983 Turkey legalizes abortion in the first trimester.
1983 In City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, the Supreme Court strikes down a statute requiring second- and third-trimester abortions be done in hospitals, and that the woman be informed of the state of development of her fetus, alternatives to abortion and that fetal remains be disposed of in a humane fashion.
1983 Campaign Life Coalition founds The Interim after a press conference by Bernard Nathanson in Toronto receives no mainstream coverage.
1984 Kazunori Baba invents the 3D ultrasound.
1984 Ronald Reagan announces the "Mexico City Policy" which denies tax dollars to aid organizations that fund abortion.
1985 Spain's Constitutional Tribunal declares the fetus to be a human being from conception and is therefore entitled to protection from the State.
1985 Reverend Michael Bray is convicted for having destroyed seven abortion clinics.
1986 Randall Terry's Operation Rescue stages its first demonstration at a clinic near Binghamton, NY. He was fined for entering a clinic, and went to jail rather than pay it. Subsequently, he prohibited members from entering clinics, focusing instead on blockades.
1986 In Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, The Supreme Court rules on the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, declaring unconstitutional the provision that required women to be informed of the name of her abortionist, the risks of abortion, of medical assistance available and of the father's financial responsibility if she pursued her pregnancy.
1986 Coalition for Life and Campaign Life merge to become Campaign Life Coalition, Canada's premier pro-life lobbying group.
1986 The PBS series Nova produces The Miracle of Life, becoming the most popular episode ever broadcast.
1987 The French government approves RU-486, the first medically-approved abortion pill.
1987 November 28. Operation Rescue holds its first major clinic blockade at Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 211 people are arrested.
1987 The Senate votes against nominating Judge Robert Bork to the United States Supreme Court to replace Justice Lewis Powell. Bork was slandered, pegged as an extremist, because of his conservative views, including his views on fetal rights. Judge Anthony Kennedy was chosen instead.
1987 The Family Coalition Party of Ontario is founded to give Ontarians the opportunity to vote pro-life.
1987 The Christian Heritage Party of Canada is founded to advocate for a Christian worldview in government.
1987 The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issues Donum Vitae, denouncing a host of anti-life practices including in vitro fertilization and research that destroys embryos.
1988 Canadian Supreme Court strikes down Canada's abortion law. Canada is one of the few countries in the world with no legal protection for the unborn.
1988 May. Operation Rescue holds a series of protests across New York City. 1600 people were arrested for blocking clinics.
1988 Operation Rescue organizes "The Siege of Atlanta." 1300 protesters were arrested between July and October for blocking clinics, but none were closed for more than an hour or two.
1988 Operation Rescue holds a "National Day of Rescue" on October 29-30th. There were 4600 arrests in 27 cities across the United States and Canada.
1988 Pat Robertson founds The Christian Coalition, a group mobilized to advance social conservative causes at the polls.
1989 Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear the Joe Borowski case, stating that the 1988 Morgentaler case made his case moot. Borowski was trying to prove that the fetus had a right to life.
1989 The Supreme Court of Canada rules in Tremblay vs. Daigle. Chantal Daigle had already had already had an abortion in the United States, but the court overturned the injunction preventing her from having one.
1989 Romania lifts restrictions on abortion. Its anti-abortion law was motivated more by demographic concerns rather than concerns about fetal rights.
1989 Chile bans all abortion.
1989 The Supreme Court upholds the right of States to manage public funds and resources used for abortion in Webster v. Reproductive Services, and upheld prohibitions against abortion after 20 weeks.
1989 Msgr. Philip O'Reilly founds The Helpers of God's Precious Infants, a group dedicated to prayer and sidewalk counseling.
1990 UK: The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act revises The Infant Life (Preservation) Act of 1929 and establishes fetal viability at 24 weeks.
1990 Bulgaria legalizes abortion.
1990 Priests for Life is founded by Fr. Lee Kaylor, a priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
1991 RU486 approved in Britain
1991 Bill C-43, a law which would have regulated abortion in Canada, fails in a tie vote in the Senate. Canada becomes the only country in the world without any abortion laws or regulations of any kind.
1991 In an operation dubbed "The Summer of Mercy", Operation Rescue seeks to shut down all the abortion clinics in Wichita, Kansa. This city was chosen because it was the home base for abortionist George Tiller, who was one of the few abortionists who openly did late-term abortions. The protesters were at first successful, having closed the clinics for a week. But thousands of pro-abortion supporters from across the country descended on the town to keep the clinics open.
1992 The Supreme Court rules on Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, maintaining the core ideas of Roe v. Wade; requires that abortion laws not place an undue burden on the pregnant woman.
1992 Abortion Martin Haskell describes a new, gruesome abortion technique during a National Abortion Federation seminar. Its medical name was Dilatation and Extraction but it came to be known as partial birth abortion. It involves partially delivery the baby, then stabbing the baby's skull to create a hole and then vacuuming out the baby's brain.
1992 A fire-bomb destroys the Morgentaler Clinic in Toronto. The perpetrator is never caught, but pro-lifers are blamed for it.
1992 Poland, newly freed from Soviet domination, passes a restrictive abortion law curtailing elective abortions.
1992 In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, The US Supreme Court rules that abortion provisions must not create an "undue burden" on the woman seeking an abortion.
1992 LifeNews.com starts out as Pro-Life InfoNet.
1993 Abortionist David Gunn was shot and killed in Pensacola, Florida.
1993 Abortionist George Patterson was shot and killed in Mobile Alabama. The killer was never caught.
1993 Two Canadians, Dr. Janet Rossant and Dr. Andras Nagy prove the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells.
1994 Mother Teresa gives a famous speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, attended by Bill and Hillary Clinton. She said. "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion."
1994 Abortionist Garson Romalis is shot in his home by a sniper hidden in an alley. He almost dies. Because of the trauma, he does not return to delivering babies and focuses on performing abortions. Mainstream pro-lifers dissociate themselves with such violence. Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition says "The life of an abortion doctor is worth just as much as that of a child in the womb."
1994 Abortionist John Britton and his bodyguard were shot and killed in Pensacola, Florida.
1994 Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols, two abortion clinic receptionists, were shot and killed in Boston.
1995 Pope St. John Paul the Great issues Evangelium Vitae. Invoking papal infallibility, he declares that all direct abortions are a grave sin that no circumstance can justify.
1995 Abortionist Hugh Short of Hamilton is shot in the elbow while relaxing at home.
1995 Poland, now under a communist-led government, re-legalizes abortion in the first trimester.
1995 Human Life International holds a conference in Montreal that is the scene of ferocious pro-abortion counter-protests. Mary Queen of the World Cathedral is trashed.
1995 The Government of British Columbia imposes a no-protest bubble zone for two abortion clinics.
1996 President Bill Clinton vetoes The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
1996 South Africa legalizes abortion on demand in the first trimester.
1996 John Salvi convicted for carrying out two fatal shootings at clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts. He would later die by suicide.
1996 First fetal operation in utero by Michael Harrison to treat an obstructed urinary tract at the University of California at San Francisco.
1997 Rosemary Connell and Bill Whatcott found Show the Truth, a group which tours various parts of Canada and protests abortion by showing large signs with pictures of aborted babies. Fr. Tony van Hee is their spiritual leader.
1997 Ron Fitzsimmons, head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, told journalists that he lied through his teeth when he said that partial birth abortions were performed very rarely and only for dire medical emergencies.
1997 Abortionist Jack Fainman of Winnipeg is shot.
1997 With a government now led by Solidarity, Poland re-criminalizes abortion.
1997 LifeSiteNews is founded by Canadians Steve Jalsevac and John Henry Westen. It became a leading source of information related to the culture of life.
1997 LifeSiteNews is founded by Canadians Steve Jalsevac and John Henry Westen. It became a leading source of information related to the culture of life.
1997 A court declares that the Morgentaler Clinic in Halifax was guilty of negligence when it released a patient too early after an abortion, and the patient fainted while driving and swerved into oncoming traffic. The patient was awarded $724 000 in damages.
1998 The first Canadian March for Life is held in Ottawa.
1998 The first Canadian March for Life is held in Ottawa.
1998 James Kopp is charged in the shooting of Hugh Short and Bernard Slepian. He will be arrested in France in 2001.
1998 Abortionist Bernard Slepian is fatally wounded in Buffalo New York.
1998 Researchers at the University of Wisconsin isolate embryonic stem cells, launching the debate over stem cell research.
1998 An American Court rules that pro-life activist Joe Scheidler must pay $258 000 to two abortuaries for "racketeering" because of his pro-life activism. The case would last for many years, being re-visited three times by the Supreme Court.
1998 The United States Supreme Court rejects challenge to the FACE law, which criminalized pro-life activity around the entrance of abortion clinics.
1998 Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade converts to Catholicism.
1998 The United States Supreme Court rejects a challenge to a New Jersey law that creates a no-protest bubble zone around an abortionist's house.
1998 B.C. expands its no-protest bubble zone to a Vancouver hospital.
1998 Twelve-year-old Ximena Renaerts receives an $8.7 million settlement from a Vancouver General Hospital. She had been born live after an abortion and thrown into a bed pan. She was saved only because a principled nurse found her and resuscitated her.
1999 The Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear the appeal of Human Life International, which had its charity tax status denied. A lower court had ruled that HLI's attempts to inform people about abortion, homsexuality and sex ed amount to political activity.
1999 The Clinton administration uses a loophole in the law to fund embryonic stem cell research.
1999 Scandal erupts as a 35-week-old baby is born alive and left to die after a late-term abortion at Calgary's Foothills Hospital. The baby lived for 12 hours, and despite the entreaties of the mother, no care was given. No charges were laid after a police investigation.
1999 The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Foundation in the US is providing newborn babies with a free classical CD called Smart Symphonies, based on the long held theory that classical music is beneficial to infants’ brain stimulation
1999 Neal Borkowski is the first baby to have ever undergone brain surgery in the womb at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He was treated for hydrocephalus.
1999 Britain bans human cloning for scientific research.
1999 The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Ryan Dobson did not legally exist when he suffered injuries in the womb of his mother so that he could not sue her for injuries he sustained in womb.
1999 The United States Food and Drug Administration approve of Plan B, which is thought to work by preventing implantation.
1999 American Home Products Corp. and its subsidiary Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories agree to settle a class-action lawsuit involving 40 000 women who complained of side effects from Norplant, a contraceptive implant.
1999 The Snowflake Adoption Program is launched by Christian Adoption and Family Services in the United States. It facilitates embryo adoption of extra embryos produced through IVF.
1999 Matt Drudge leaves Fox News after he was prohibited from showing the famous picture of the fetal arm reaching out of the uterus during an operation.
1999 IVF Canada, an IVF clinic in Toronto, is the first to use the Pre-natal genetic diagnosis. The least genetically compromised embryo is chosen to implant.
1999 Confrontation between NDP MP Svend Robinson and Fr. Tony Van Hee on Parliament Hill. Fr. Van Hee fasts and protests on Parliament Hill every day the House is in session. Robinson confronted the priest and attempted to break his signs. The dispute was over signs condemning homosexuality.
2000 RU486 approved for use in the USA.
2000 Abortionist Garson Romalis is stabbed. He is not seriously injured. Campaign Life Coalition offers $10 000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the attacker, who is never caught.
2000 Plan B approved for sale in Canada.
2000 Cuban pro-life hero Oscar Biscet is jailed for displaying the Cuban flag upside down. He would be treated cruelly in prison for his counter-revolutionary beliefs.
2000 The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Women's League, and the Ontario Catholic Teachers Association endorse the radically pro-abortion World March for Women. Development and Peace contributed $135 000 over a four year period. Six Canadian Bishops participate.
2000 Japan allows human cloning for research.
2000 Feminists for Life launch the "Question Abortion" campaign, consisting of a series of ads that highlight the need for alternatives, the lack of resources for parents and post-abortion trauma.
2000 Britain allows human cloning for research. European Parliament condemns the decision in a 237-230 during a non-binding vote.
2000 Ontario Premier Mike Harris breaks promise not to expand abortion by funding a pilot project to distribute the morning-after pill in two 24-hour pharmacies in Toronto.
2000 The Liberal Party of Canada declares itself "pro-choice" in a letter to Campaign Life Coalition.
2000 Popular T.V. Show "Touched by an Angel" airs pro-life episode "The Empty Chair" on the theme of post-abortion trauma.
2000 In a referendum, the Swiss approve of abortion on demand for the first 12 weeks.
2001 Switzerland liberalizes its abortion law after a referendum.
2001 Stephanie Gray and Jojo Ruba found The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform
2001 Free Dominion, a conservative message board, is founded by Connie Wilkins (later Fournier) and Mark Fournier. It would become an important gathering place for Canadian pro-lifers and other conservatives before the advent of social media.
2001 Development and Peace dissociates itself from the March for Women for its support for abortion.
2001 Pat Robertson defends China's one-child policy on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports."
2001 Manitoba introduces an unborn baby bonus. Low-income pregnant women are eligible to a payment of up to $81.41 per month.
2001 A number of Alliance MPs, led by Deborah Gray, defect from the Canadian Alliance caucus, in disagreement over Stockwell Day's socially conservative views.
2001 Development and Peace donates $140 000 to the pro-abortion People's Summit of the Americas.
2001 The Bush Administration funds existing embryonic stem cell lines but bans the creation of embryos for research.
2001 The Center for Bioethical Reform launches its "Reproductive Choice Campaign" with what were dubbed "truth trucks": trucks featuring pictures of aborted babies on the side.
2001 Nurse Jill Stanek testifies to congress about the practice of leaving babies to die after abortion. She is fired from her job.
2002 New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs an executive order requiring all public hospitals to provide abortion training to all its OBGYN residents.
2002 In Planned Parenthood vs. American Coalition of Life Activists, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the website The Nuremberg Files violated the FACE act in creating a perceived threat against abortionists. Neal Horsley was forced to pay $120 million in damages, although that amount was reduced by the Supreme Court
2002 Pro-abortion Stephen Harper wins Canadian Alliance Leadership. He leads a majoritarily pro-life caucus though he himself is not.
2002 The Catholic Church's World Youth Day is held in Toronto. Included in the festivities is a World Youth for Life Day held on Olympic Island and featuring many prominent speakers.
2002 France's Cour de Cassation rules that the unborn do not have the status of living persons, in a case involving a doctor and a midwife who had been found guilty of manslaughter while the mother was in labour.
2002 European Parliament passes resolution calling on all European countries to legalize abortion.
2002 The United States passes The Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which requires caregivers to care for all babies born alive, including those born alive after abortion, and those who are otherwise not viable. It would be signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003.
2002 Raelians claim to have implanted cloned human embryos inside cult members. This was later proven to be a hoax.
2003 Janet Morana founds The Silent No More Awareness Campaign to hold retreats for post-abortive men and women and give them a chance to testify on how abortion hurt them.
2003 The Southern Baptist Convention denounces and repudiates its pro-abortion resolutions of 1971 and 1974.
2003 In a major victory, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that RICO statutes were improperly used against pro-life activist Joe Scheidler: Civil disobedience does not amount to racketeering.
2003 James Kopp is convicted of murder in the shooting of abortionist Bernard Slepian.
2003 The Supreme Court of the United States upholds ban on "Wanted" posters for abortionists on the Nuremberg Files website.
2003 The Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear a case on a B.C. bubble zone, allowing it to stand. No opposition to abortion can be expressed within 50 metres of a clinic.
2003 Pro-life Motion M-83 defeated. It was sponsored by Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville).It would have required Parliament to examine the medical necessity of abortion. It was the first vote on a pro-life measure in 12 years and it was allowed due to the decision by the House to deem all private member motions and bills votable by default.
2003 Morgentaler's Halifax abortuary closes due to lack of business.
2003 Aaliyah Hart, Britain's smallest baby to survive birth, is born. She was 7 inches long and weighed 12 ounces when she was born at 28 weeks gestation.
2004 Ottawa: Passage of The Reproductive Technologies Bill, which permitted destruction of human embryos and embryo cloning. The pro-life effort to defeat the Bill was led by Liberal MP Paul Szabo (Mississauga-South).
2004 Denise Mountenay founds Silent No More Canada.
2004 President George W. Bush signs The Unborn Victims of Violence Act making the killing of an unborn child a criminal offense.
2004 An Israeli woman gives birth to twins after they had been frozen 12 years, the longest time any embryo had been in storage before implantation.
2004 Several hospitals in Germany install a "baby-hatch" allowing a mother to safely surrender a child. It is seen as an alternative to abortion or adoption.
2004 U.K.: 1.5 million viewers tune in to BBC 4 to watch My Foetus a documentary which shows a woman obtaining an abortion.
2004 Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, states that pro-abortion politicians must be denied Communion.
2004 Canonization of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a Catholic doctor who refused treatment for ovarian cancer to save her child's life. She died soon after the child's birth.
2004 Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary issues a pastoral letter denouncing Prime Minister Paul Martin's pro-abortion stance.
2004 During the Canadian election campaign, Liberal campaign ads suggest Conservative leader Stephen Harper won't protect "a woman's right to choose."
2004 In an interview on French CBC, Father Raymond Gravel announces he is pro-choice. His bishop, Gilles Lussier of Joliette, does nothing to admonish him.
2004 Pro-lifers make gains in Canadian federal election, electing at least 10 more pro-life MP's than before.
2004 At its annual conference, the British Medical Association passes a resolution affirming that a child born alive after abortion has right to life.
2004 The European Court of Human Rights rules that it is neither desirable nor possible to determine whether an unborn child is a person.
2004 Planned Parenthood issues "I had an abortion" t-shirts.
2004 The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace releases The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which calls abortion "a horrendous crime."
2004 Scott Peterson is convicted for the murder of his wife and unborn child Connor in California. The national media gave the case much prominence and reinforced the idea that unborn children deserve justice.
2005 Publication of Joseph Dellapenna's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History, which sought to overturn a number of historical myths upon which Roe v. Wade and other pro-abortion propaganda is based.
2005 The Bank of Montreal ends its MasterCard Affinity program with Life Canada. Every time the card was used, a small percentage was donated to Life Canada. Pro-aborts complained and BMO did not want any part of the abortion controversy.
2005 The murder of Lianna White and her unborn child leads to calls for a bill recognizing unborn victims of crime.
2005 Fearing violence from pro-abortion protesters, St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal reneges on its contract and tells Campagne Québec-Vie it cannot hold its conference. CQV is forced to change the venue the day before. Evangelical Pastor Jeff Laurin offers his church to host the conference in Cartierville, and it goes ahead.
2005 Alberta passes The Maternal Tort Liability Act, the only pro-fetal legislation in Canada. It allows for a person who suffers injuries in a car accident in the womb to sue his mother for compensation.
2005 The murder of Olivia Talbot and her baby renews calls for a bill recognizing unborn victims of crime.
2006 USA: Birth of Amilia Taylor at 21 weeks 6 days gestation, the youngest premature infant to survive. Her age was known because she was conceived through IVF.
2006 Health Canada warns against the practice of "keepsake ultrasounds" because the risks of hurting the unborn child are unknown.
2006 Stephen Harper's Conservatives win enough seats to form a minority government. The number of pro-life MP's increases slightly; a number of them are militant supporters of fetal rights.
2006 The Supreme Court rules yet again in favour of Joe Scheidler in NOW vs. Scheidler. RICO racketeering charges cannot be brought against activists. The case had been ruled upon in 2003, but NOW had managed to have the case re-opened.
2006 South Dakota voters overturn the most restrictive abortion law ever passed in the United States since Roe v. Wade
2006 At its annual general meeting, Amnesty International Canada votes to undertake abortion advocacy.
2006 The U.S. Supreme Court allows "Choose Life" in Louisiana and Tennessee even though a corresponding pro-abortion message is not available.
2006 Quebec Court forces government to pay for all fees associated with abortion.
2006 The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to re-hear Doe v. Bolton, which required a "health" exception to abortion in all stages of pregnancy.
2006 The New York publishes false reports about El Salvador's abortion ban in an article entitled "Pro-Life Nation". They claim that women are given 30 year jail sentences for abortion when in fact they are criminals guilty of other crimes such as infanticide. Corrections are only published in early 2007, but the damage is done and the stories are still cited until this day. Salvadoran newspapers decry the errors.
2006 The pro-life film Bella wins the People's Choice Award at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival.
2006 MP Leon Benoit's bill to recognize unborn victims of crime is deemed non-votable by a House of Commons committee.
2007 The United States Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Act in Gonzales v. Carhart.
2007 Conservative MP Ken Epp introduces Bill C-484, a bill to recognize unborn victims of crime, which passes second reading, but dies when an election is called in 2008.
2007 Pro-lifers win the CBC's The Great Canadian Wish List on Facebook. The purpose of the contest was to suggest a measure for a better world. The measure with the most votes on facebook would receive coverage on July 1st. David Gilbert suggested the winning wish "Abolish Abortion". The CBC provided coverage of this win, but also gave time to the pro-abortion measure that was suggested to counter it.
2007 Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa founds New Wave Feminists, dedicated to pro-life feminism.
2007 Portugal legalizes abortion after referendum campaign.
2007 Launch of the 40 Days for Life Campaign in College Station, Texas.
2007 African Health Ministers sign the Maputo Protocol, which pushes for "reproductive health services", a euphemism for abortion.
2007 Amnesty International adopts a pro-abortion policy that was meant to be secret, but is leaked.
2007 Pro-abortion bloggers and liberal MP Garth Turner call Campaign Life Coalition to task for the use of the Government of Canada wordmark on a banner at the March for Life. Some go far to suggest that Campaign Life received government funding and that Stephen Harper is secretly pro-life. Due to the scandal, the March gets more media attention than it otherwise would have.
2007 The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform puts "truth trucks" on the streets and highways of Calgary. They depict aborted babies, revealing the truth about abortion.
2007 The Slovak High Court rules 24 week abortion limit is unconstitutional; restricts it to 12 weeks.
2007 Bloc Québécois MP and Catholic Priest Fr. Raymond Gravel declares his opposition to Ken Epp's Unborn Victim of Crime bill, fearing the criminalization of abortion. Calls the pro-life movement "fanatical."
2007 Spain: an undercover exposé shows an illegal late-term abortion of a five-month-old fetus at the El Bosque clinic in Madrid, plus the bodies of many aborted babies. Numerous doctors, including Spain's abortion king, Carlos Morin, are arrested in the wake of the scandal.
2007 Juno, a movie that is considered by many to be pro-life, is a box office hit.
2008 Bill C-484, which would have recognized unborn victims of crime passes second reading but dies on the order paper. It was introduced by Conservative MP Ken Epp (Edmonton-Sherwood Park).
2008 Halifax becomes the first Canadian city to host a 40 Days for Life campaign.
2008 Abortionist Henry Morgentaler is awarded the Order of Canada in the Citadel in Quebec City. The choice was so controversial that the ceremony was moved there was it was feared that it would be marred by protests. There was a small protest outside the Citadel walls.
2008 The Supreme Court of Canada sides with Bill Whatcott in his case against the Saskatchewan Association of Licensed Practical Nurses. They had deprived him of his nursing license in 2005 and fined him $15000 in legal fees after he protested Planned Parenthood in Regina in 2002 and 2003.
2008 Canadian Federation of Students declares itself 'pro-choice', votes to deny resources to pro-life clubs in the campuses that it controls.
2008 France's Supreme Court rules that families can register names for their miscarried and stillborn children no matter the stage of gestation.
2008 UK researchers at Newcastle University announce first animal-human embryo hybrid.
2008 Yale Fine Arts student Aliza Shvarts is reported to have impregnated herself and aborted herself with drugs for an art project. She later revealed it was performance art, a piece of "creative fiction" designed to emphasize the ambiguity of the function of the female body. The ambiguity came from the fact that she did not know whether or not she was pregnant. Reports of her art project created a storm of controversy.
2008 President George W. Bush signs The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act which protects born and unborn human beings from being discriminated against by insurance companies based on their genetic make-up.
2008 Colorado's Personhood Amendment defeated at the ballot box, opposed by 73.5% of voters.
2008 Voters reject abortion ban in South Dakota by a margin of 55-45.
2008 The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issues Dignitatis Personae, an update to Donum Vitae, which condemns among other practices, embryo adoption and the use of morning after pills.
2009 May 31. Abortionist George Tiller was killed at his church in Wichita, Kansas. Scott Roeder confessed to the killing, and was sentenced to a life sentence without parole for 50 years.
2009 Development and Peace Scandal erupts in Canada. Canadian pro-life bloggers, spearheaded by John Pacheco of SoCon or Bust, and LifeSiteNews, reveal how D & P -- the social justice arm of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops-- fund groups who support abortion in the Third World. The scandal received attention from mainstream media.
2009 22 Weeks premieres at the Washington March for Life. It is based on the true story of a woman who had a late-term abortion at an Orlando clinic, and her baby was born alive.
2009 U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Ninth Circuit Court's ruling protecting the right to show graphic photos on public streets.
2009 Nadya Suleman gives birth to octuplets, only the second set of octuplets born alive in the United States. The babies had been frozen embryos from previous IVF treatments, and Suleman had them all implanted inside of her, not expecting that all of them would live. It was learned that she had six other children and was unemployed. She faced much media scrutiny for her personal life.
2009 Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife, Brazil announces excommunication of family members involved in obtaining a second trimester abortion of a nine-year-old victim of incest pregnant with twins. This would cause a scandal throughout the world.
2009 David Kinsella releases Killing Girls a graphic documentary about abortion in Russia, featuring women undergoing late-term abortions.
2009 Notre Dame University offers honorary doctorate to pro-abortion president Barack Obama, causing scandal.
2009 Abby Johnson quits Planned Parenthood. Soon she would launch a ministry And Then There Were None to help other abortion workers quit the industry.
2009 The Supreme Court of Canada dismisses an appeal regarding B.C.'s bubble zone, prohibiting all protest 50 metres in front of an abortion clinic.
2009 Georgia becomes the first state to regulate embryo adoption.
2009 Senator Ted Kennedy receives public funeral in spite of his on-going and public support for legal abortion. This causes consternation among Catholics.
2009 The International Planned Parenthood Federation set up abortion hotlines in Latin America to help women get around abortion laws.
2009 Pro-life activist Jim Pouillon shot and killed by Harlan Drake who was upset that he showed graphic abortion images.
2009 In an interview with Bob Dunning of "Across the Nation", broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio, Fr. Tom Rosica, head of Salt and Light Television, says Lifesitenews "is doing the work of Satan" for being dishonest and bombastic.
2009 A presentation by Jojo Ruba entitled Echoes of the Holocaust is shouted down by protesters at McGill University, and prevented it from being given. Two protesters were arrested. The protesters sang kindergarten songs and engaged in childish behaviour and generally wasted everyone's time.
2009 Lennart Nilsson issues the fifth edition of A Child is Born.
2010 Four Carleton University students are arrested for conducting a pro-life protest with graphic images at Carleton University. The charges would later be dropped as the students sued the university.
2010 Superbowl Ad featuring Tim Tebow draws much ire from feminists. Tim Tebow's mom, Pam, had refused to abort against the advice of doctors and the ad referred to a website that tells his story. Feminists were upset at the pro-life messaging.
2010 A Liberal Motion which sought to force Prime Minister Stephen Harper to include abortion in his Maternal Health Initiative was defeated by a vote of 144-138.
2010 Obamacare is passed in the United States. It forces Catholic institutions and other pro-life employers to pay for insurance plans that cover abortion and contraception. It sparks numerous lawsuits.
2010 Nebraska passes the first state law banning abortion after 20 weeks, on the basis that the unborn child feels pain at that stage of gestation.
2010 Canadian MP's defeat Bill C-510, Roxanne's Law, which would ban coerced abortions. It was sponsored by Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge (Winnipeg South).
2010 Arrest of abortionist of Kermit Gosnell who ran an illegal abortion operation and pill mill. in Philadelphia. He performed elective third trimester abortions in filthy conditions, employing incompetent staff and slitting the necks of babies who managed to be born alive.
2010 Cardinal Ouellet is viciously attacked in the Quebec media for saying that abortion is a moral crime, even in cases of rape. In reaction to this statement, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously votes a motion asserting a woman's right to abortion.
2010 Quebec government announces plan to provide up to three free rounds of IVF to infertile couples.
2010 Pope Benedict XVI calls for a worldwide Vigil for Life on the First Sunday of Advent, to be led by every diocesan bishop. Thousands of dioceses around the world pray for the right to life.
2011 Sun News Network begins broadcasting. It was the strongest pro-life media in Canadian history. Pro-lifers Brian Lilley and (then) Catholic Michael Coren regularly used their primetime shows to defend the pro-life cause. SNN folded Friday, February 13th, 2015 due to lack of viewership and money.
2011 Fr. Raymond Gravel launches a lawsuit against LifeSiteNews and one against Campagne-Vie Québec for defamation. He took exception to those organizations saying that he was not pro-life, in spite of the fact that when he was an MP he voted against the Unborn Victims of Crime bill, and he opposes legal protection of unborn children. CQV was forced to settle because it faced being shut down. Fr. Gravel died in 2014 before LSN had its day in court, but the legal fees were quite punitive.
2011 Chicago's Resurrection Hospital gains national attention with its Bethlehem Project, which commits to helping women reverse chemical abortions if they change their minds.
2011 Future president Donald Trump tells CPAC he is pro-life, in spite of his past strong support for abortion at all stages of gestation.
2011 In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine pop superstar Justin Bieber declares his opposition to abortion, saying that it is like "killing a baby". He shows uncertainty on the issue of abortion in cases of rape.
2011 Alberta Catholic bishops boycott the Alberta March for life in Edmonton over the use of graphic abortion images.
2011 Ontario Human Rights Tribunal issues rare ruling in favour of pro-lifers declaring that the pro-life monument at St. Jean Baptiste Church in L'Orignal, Ontario, does not violate women's rights, contrary to the complaint of a parishioner who filed the complaint. The Tribunal ruled that religious messages on church property were outside its jurisdiction.
2011 During an election campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper vows to defeat pro-life bills.
2011 In the lead up to the Ontario provincial election campaign, pro-life Progressive Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak said that he would not open the abortion debate.
2011 President Barack Obama signs The America Invents Act, which includes the Weldon Patent Ban that makes it illegal to patent human embryos.
2011 LifeSiteNews media accreditation rejected by the CCCB at their plenary assembly meeting in Cornwall, Ontario. It was believed that this was due to LSN's coverage of the Development and Peace scandal, and the bishops' general unwillingness to reform the organization in order that they conform with Church teaching, especially as regards the culture of life.
2011 Russia votes to limit abortion on demand to 12 weeks, sets an upper limit of 22 weeks and imposes a waiting period.
2011 The Mississippi Personhood Amendment is defeated at the ballot by a vote of 58-42. It would have protected all humans from conception.
2011 Australia: public in shock after it was reported that the wrong 32 week-old twin was aborted-- so the second twin was aborted as well.
2012 Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth introduces Motion M-312, which would create a parliamentary committee to study when the child should be considered a human being under the law. The motion is defeated 203-91.
2012 A sting operation by The Daily Telegraph reveals that British abortion facilities were complicit in illegal abortions, including sex-selection abortions.
2012 Pro-life movie October Baby is released. It features the story of a young woman who tries to find her birth mother and learns that she is a survivor of abortion.
2012 The Vatican approves the new "Rite for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb."
2012 Sculptor Martin Hudacek of Slovakia creates a Memorial for Unborn Children, and is an instant sensation in pro-life social media.
2012 Pro-lifers boycott Pepsi over its dealings with Senomyx, a company that conducts flavor research using a fetal cell line. Pepsi agrees to end this unethical research.
2012 The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform launches The New Abortion Caravan. Volunteers drove cube trucks across Canada with abortion images on the side.
2012 A CBC undercover sting reveals that a number of keepsake ultrasound centres were willing to perform ultrasound for the sole purpose of revealing the sex of the baby, suggesting they were complicit in sex-selection abortions.
2012 Pro-life activists Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner receive the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medals from MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin).
2012 Death of Savita Halappanavar from septicemia while pregnant in Ireland. Opponents of fetal rights blame the lack of abortion for her death. The media scandal was orchestrated by pro-abort activists.
2012 Pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney queries a StatsCan database and discovers that between 2000 and 2009, 491 babies were born alive after abortion in Canada. MP Maurice Vellacott's call for an investigation into the matter would go unheeded.
2013 The Conservative Party of Canada members vote a motion condemning sex-selection abortion at their convention in Calgary.
2013 Surprise resignation Pope Benedict XVI, a strong pro-life defender. His successor, Pope Francis, is also strongly pro-life but puts less emphasis on culture war issues.
2013 During the Liberal leadership race, MP Justin Trudeau declares that he would require all MP's to vote for abortion.
2013 Pro-lifers organize a tweetfest on Twitter to highlight the mainstream media's almost total reporting blackout on the murder trial of notorious abortionist Kermit Gosnell. It made #Gosnell trend and brought attention to the case.
2013 The Pope joins the Italian March for Life in Rome in his popemobile: the first time in recorded history a pontiff joined a pro-life demonstration.
2013 House of Horrors abortionist Kermit Gosnell is found guilty of three counts of murder in killing babies and one count of manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a woman who sought an abortion from him.
2013 A sting operation by Montreal's La Presse had a Chinese woman enter an ultrasound clinic and tell the staff she wanted to determine the sex as she only wanted to keep the baby if it was a boy. The clinic was co-operative.
2013 Texas Governor Rick Perry signs H.B. 2, a law prohibiting abortions after 20 week, and requiring a number of safety requirements for abortion clinics. This led to a number of abortion clinic closures and a significant reduction in the number of abortions. The bill had been the subject of raucous pro-abortion protests at the legislature in Austin.
2013 British Artist Damien Hirst produces produces a series of 14 mammoth sculptures depicting unborn children in various stages. The work is displayed at the Sidra Medical and Research Center in Qatar.
2013 March for Babies in Melbourne, Australia turns violent as a pro-abort mob attacks activists attack protesters. Bryan Kemper of Stand True Pro-Life Ministries, Victoria MP Bernie Finn and MP Andrew Elmsbury are among the victims.
2013 Four topless Femen activists interrupt a lecture given by Brussels Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard. They douse him with water and scream pro-homosexual slogans.
2013 First chemical abortion reversal performed by Dr. Matt Harrison.
2013 Miraculous cure of unborn baby attributed to intercession of Pope Paul VI, moving him closer to sainthood.
2014 Russia bans all abortion advertizing.
2014 Bus ads in Halifax and Guelph spark debate. They read: "Luc was born today but his life began nine months ago." They were sponsored by Signs4Life.ca
2014 MP Stephen Woodworth's motion M-476 does not receive unanimous consent and therefore cannot be voted on. It read "That the House of Commons affirm that every Canadian law must be interpreted in a manner that recognizes in law the equal worth and dignity of everyone who is in fact a human being."
2014 28-year-old case NOW v. Schleider comes to an end as defendants are awarded court costs. The case began in 1986 when NOW accused sidewalk counselors of using violence when blocking abortion entrances. A 1994 ruling allowed RICO to be invoked to prosecuted Scheidler and The Pro-Life Action League. The Supreme Court issue its final verdict in 2007.
2014 Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau declares that pro-lifers are not welcome to run as Liberal candidates.
2014 Topless Femen activist interrupts Cardinal Gerald Lacroix while he reads the Pope's blessing during the March for Life. The cardinal does not flinch, and the arrest of a feminist activist brings more attention that it would have otherwise from the mainstream media.
2014 The United States Supreme Court unanimously overturns a Massachusetts bubble zone that prohibited sidewalk counselors from standing 35 feet from a clinic.
2014 In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the United States Supreme Court rules that closely-held corporations may be exempt from a law for religious reason if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law aims, as per The Religious Freedom Restoration. In effect, it strikes down the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.
2014 Pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney takes the Ontario government to court over a statute prohibiting all disclosure of abortion statistics through an access to information request. The Government of Ontario relents and releases the information just before the judge was to issue a ruling.
2014 France eliminates the "distress" criterion for abortion. Now has abortion on demand.
2014 New Brunswick scraps abortion regulations requiring referrals, the only existing
government regulations on abortion in Canada.
2015 RU-486 approved for use in Canada.
2015 The Ontario College of Physicians passes a new Professional Obligations and Human Rights Policy requiring physicians to refer for abortion.
2015 Kansas becomes the first state to ban dismemberment abortions.
2015 Pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney reveals that 182 babies were born alive after abortion in the years 2013-2014, based on StatsCan information. Nobody knows what happens to these babies after they are born and no official body wants to investigate.
2015 Pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney and The Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) launch a Charter challenge against the Government of Ontario for its statute barring the public from obtaining statistics about abortion using a Freedom of Information request.
2015 The Center for Medical Progress releases a series of videos featuring two actors posing as buyers of fetal parts talking to Planned Parenthood officials and employees. It included gruesome footage of aborted baby parts. It causes a scandal and diminishes the public's esteem of Planned Parenthood.Numerous government investigations were launched but did not lead to charges. Many states defunded Planned Parenthood because of this sting.
2015 Topless Femen protesters interrupt the Ottawa March for Life for the second year in the row, resulting in more media attention for the March than it otherwise would have received.
2015 Australia deports top pro-life activist Troy Newman on frivolous grounds due to a pro-abort smear campaign. He was scheduled to speak on a national tour.
2015 Robert Lewis Dear shoots up a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing a policeman and two civilians. In May 2016, He would be declared incompetent to stand trial due to mental health issues. He is confined indefinitely to a mental health hospital.
2015 The Supreme Court of the Dominican Republic rules its abortion law unconstitutional, restores the right to life for unborn children.
2015 The 2016 Paris March for Life cancelled due to terrorist attacks on November 13th.
2015 The European Parliament adopts a resolution condemning surrogacy as the commodification of reproductive services.
2015 Birth of Emilia Grabarczyk in Witten, Germany. She was the lightest baby ever to survive birth. She was 8 inches long and weighed 8.6 ounces.
2016 St. Teresa of Calcutta is canonized. Whenever she was offered a platform, such as her Nobel Peace Prize or as a speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, she used it to defend the unborn.
2016 Molly and Cassie's Law, Bill C-225, a bill which would have criminalized the killing of an unborn child during the commission of a crime, fails to pass. The Bill had been sponsored by Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall (Yorkton-Melville.)
2016 P.E.I.'s first abortion clinic opens in Summerside P.E.I.
2016 Toronto's notorious Scott Abortion Clinic closes its doors.
2016 President Barack Obama vetoes a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. Congress fails to obtain the votes to override it.
2016 NARAL denounces a Doritos Superbowl ad because it "humanizes" a fetus. The ad and reaction create a storm on social media.
2016 The Supreme Court of the United States strikes down parts of Texas' HB 2 law which required abortionists to have admitting privileges and that abortion centres to meet strict health standards.
2016 The Mexican Supreme Court rejects bid to legalize abortion nation-wide.
2016 Republican Donald Trump is elected president as the GOP retains pro-life majorities in the House and Senate. Trump pledges to defund Planned Parenthood and select pro-life justices on the Supreme Court.
