The new majority on the U.S. Supreme Court is taking another look, at a case at the heart of America's culture wars. It's Roe versus Wade, the decision that legalized

a woman's right to choose an abortion in 1973. In a few minutes, we'll look at the court's

current makeup and what it might mean for the future of women's rights. But like every

explosive controversy, this one has a history. So consider this.

Abortion was legal in every state until a few years after the Civil War.

Leslie J. Regan is author of a book about how everything suddenly changed.

It's called When Abortion Was a Crime, Subtitled Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867 to 1973.

Leslie Regan is Professor of History and Medicine and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois.

And Professor Regan, it's great to have you on our program, and thanks for joining us.

Hi, great to be here. I take it that abortion was not only legal, but fairly common during the 1800s. Yes, it was legal. It was under common law during the colonial area, and up until the criminalization of abortion from conception on in the 1860s and 70s,

those laws were passed in every state.

But it was legal under common law.

It was fairly common.

It was a practice done at home by women themselves.

There were recipes and domestic health guide books.

Women taught each other, mothers to daughters, to sisters.

It wasn't called that.

It was thought of as, you know, obstructed mencies.

The period was late.

There was something wrong with the overall balance of the body.

And people used herbs and potions to try to get their menses back straight.

There was even people in the 18th century who would sell things and sell medications, basically, to bring the

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