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2 Pac L. J. 186 (1971)
California's 1967 Therapeutic Abortion Act: Abridging a Fundamental Right to Abortion

handle is hein.journals/mcglr2 and id is 198 raw text is: California's 1967 Therapeutic Abortion Act: Abridging A Fundamental Right To Abortion This comment examines the Therapeutic Abortion Act from three major perspectives: how has the law been applied in Cali- fornia since 1967; does a woman have a fundamental right to have an abortion; what is the state's interest in regulating abortions? A review of some recent lower court decisions helps to illuminate the latter two questions. Recent statistical data demonstrates that the rate of legal abortions is increasing dramatically. Also included is a comparison of recent abortion laws enacted by other states. Thus is the Judaeo-Christian ethic of reverence for life replaced by an ethic of reverence for welfare, convenience or happiness. It is ironic that the proposals for liberalizing abortion laws are made by a generation that is reconsidering and often abandoning capital punishment.' Prior to the enactment of California's Therapeutic Abortion Act in 1967, the California abortion law was contained in four sections of the Penal Code. The main section, 274, stated: Every person who provides, supplies, or administers to any woman, or procures any woman to take any medicine, drug, or substance or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless the same is necessary to preserve her life, is punishable by imprison- ment in the state prison not less than two nor more than five years. (Emphasis added.)2 Pursuant to this law, an abortion was legal only if necessary to pre- serve the life of the mother. In 1967, California, along with several 1 Louisell, Abortion The Practice of Medicine and the Due Process of Law, 16 U.C.L.A. L. REv. 233, 248 (1969). 2 This section, enacted in 1872, remained substantially unchanged from the origi- nal enactment as part of California's first penal code (CAL. STATS. 1850, c. 99, § 45, p. 233); § 275 stated that a woman who solicits or submits to an abortion is punishable by up to five years imprisonment; § 276 provided that any person wio solicits a woman to submit to an abortion is punishable by up to five years imprisonment; and § 182 is the general conspiracy section of the California Penal Code proscribing con- spiracy to commit any crime.

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