Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) is widely known for her dedication to three issues: women's suffrage, abolition and temperance. She was raised by abolitionist Quaker parents, later attending Unitarian churches and becoming an agnostic.
As a young woman she worked in the temperance movement and as a speaker and organizer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She is known primarily, however, for her leadership in the women's suffrage movement, a cause to which she devoted most of her life. The Nineteenth Amendment, which guarantees the right of women to vote, has been called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment because of her efforts to achieve its passage.
In 1979 she was honored as the first American woman to be represented on U.S. currency, the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
Women's suffrage in the United States
In a case that generated national controversy, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the presidential election of 1872. The judge directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. When he asked Anthony, who had not been permitted to speak during the trial, if she had anything to say, she responded with what one historian has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage". She called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights", saying, "... you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored." The judge sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty", and she never did. However the judge did not order her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, for Anthony could have appealed her case.