Abortion criminalization was partly driven by nativist fear of immigrant population growth

Evidence

Laws against vice, and laws that aimed to control sexual behavior, seem quixotic, futile. In fact, they also had a strong practical base. Even the criminalization of abortion—​the moral element was certainly there, but so was the idea that immigrants were breeding like rabbits, while good solid white women were killing off their babies. One doctor decried the “appalling” amount of abortion among the right sort of woman, threatening the dominance of the “Puritanic blood of ’76.” — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3353

Categorization

• XREF: Directly speaks to the polyad’s thread connecting law, nativism/race, and reproduction. — connects to: Nativism was driven by internal anxieties, not by the immigrants themselves — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 397

Broader Connections

• Nativism was driven by internal anxieties, not by the immigrants themselves #expands (0.72) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 397