Some of the early anti-abortion laws punished only the doctor or abortionist, and while women could be criminally tried for a self-induced abortion, they were rarely prosecuted in general. In the United States, some argued that abortion was more dangerous than childbirth until about 1930 when incremental improvements in abortion procedures relative to childbirth made abortion safer. Others maintain that in the 19th century early abortions under the hygienic conditions in which midwives usually worked were relatively safe. Several scholars argue that, despite improved medical procedures, the period from the 1930s until the 1970s saw more zealous enforcement of anti-abortion laws, and concomitantly an increasing control of abortion providers by organized crime.Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935), and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In Nazi Germany (1935), a law permitted abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Preceding the Nazi German example was that of some 19th-century physicians, one of the most famous and consequential being Horatio Storer, who argued for anti-abortion laws on racist and pseudoscientific grounds. Beginning in the second half of the 20th century, abortion was legalized in a greater number of countries. Society and culture
Abortion debate
Induced abortion has long been the source of considerable debate. Ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, religious and legal issues surrounding abortion are related to value systems. Opinions of abortion may be about fetal rights, governmental authority, and womens rights.
In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 26% of reported legal induced abortions in the United States were known to have been obtained at less than 6 weeks gestation, 18% at 7 weeks, 15% at 8 weeks, 18% at 9 through 10 weeks, 10% at 11 through 12 weeks, 6% at 13 through 15 weeks, 4% at 16 through 20 weeks and 1% at more than 21 weeks. 91% of these were classified as having been done by "curettage" (suction-aspiration, dilation and curettage, dilation and evacuation), 8% by "medical" means (mifepristone), >1% by "intrauterine instillation" (saline or prostaglandin), and 1% by "other" (including hysterotomy and hysterectomy). According to the CDC, due to data collection difficulties the data must be viewed as tentative and some fetal deaths reported beyond 20 weeks may be natural deaths erroneously classified as abortions if the removal of the dead fetus is accomplished by the same procedure as an induced abortion.The Guttmacher Institute estimated there were 2,200 intact dilation and extraction procedures in the US during 2000; this accounts for <0.2% of the total number of abortions performed that year. Similarly, in England and Wales in 2006, 89% of terminations occurred at or under 12 weeks, 9% between 13 and 19 weeks, and 2% at or over 20 weeks. 64% of those reported were by vacuum aspiration, 6% by D&E, and 30% were medical. There are more second trimester abortions in developing countries such as China, India and Vietnam than in developed countries.