← All research pathsPregnancy and childbirth in legal history
Read historical statutes, state papers, and reported cases addressing medical consent, pregnancy pleas, and maternal injury. These sources arise in different legal settings. Their historical rules do not by themselves resolve a modern constitutional claim.
Printed page 28 · PDF page 30
Medical practitioners and patient consent
The 1672 compilation prints a provision dated 1649 regulating surgeons, midwives, physicians, and others caring for the body. It restricts force, violence, and cruelty and specifies professional advice and the consent of a patient competent to consent.
Massachusetts Bay Colony, The General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusets Colony 28 (Cambridge, Samuel Green for John Usher 1672).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 363 · PDF page 377
Barnett's petition, examination, and reprieve record
Volume VI prints Virginia state papers from 1792 and 1793. The Barnett entries include her request for a pregnancy respite, the physicians’ examination and certificate, and the jailer’s receipt of a reprieve.
6 Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, from August 11, 1792, to December 31, 1793, Preserved in the Capitol at Richmond 363 (Sherwin McRae ed., Richmond, A. R. Micou, Superintendent of Public Printing 1886).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 489 · PDF page 505
A pregnancy plea and a jury of matrons
Bay’s second edition reports State v. Arden, a 1795 South Carolina case. After Arden pleaded pregnancy before sentence, the court summoned a jury of matrons and adjourned pending its finding. The report states that the jury found her not pregnant, after which sentence and execution followed.
State v. Arden, 1 Bay 487, 489 (S.C. 1795).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 53 · PDF page 60
Consent and aggravated assault upon the woman
New Jersey decision examining common-law criminal liability for attempted abortion before quickening and distinguishing conduct with the woman's consent from an assault without consent.
State v. Cooper, 22 N.J.L. 52, 53 (1849).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 103 · PDF page 112
Consent and punishment in the 1857 Penal Code
The 1857 publication of the Texas Penal Code adopted in 1856. Article 531 punished procurement of an abortion with the pregnant woman's consent and doubled the punishment when done without her consent. Article 536 provided an exception for medical advice to save the mother's life.
State of Texas, The Penal Code of the State of Texas 103 (James Willie, publication superintendent and indexer, Galveston, Printed at the News Office 1857).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 245 · PDF page 239
Childbirth injury and the mother's own damages
Georgia decision addressing a mother's claimed bodily and mental injuries in an obstetrical malpractice action, including the adequacy of jury instructions on compensatory damages.
Smith v. Overby, 30 Ga. 241, 245 (1860).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 462 · PDF page 492
Prenatal anxiety and the limits of parental recovery
A 1908 New Hampshire negligence decision recognizing the pregnant plaintiff's prenatal anxiety as a distinct element of her own damages while excluding later parental grief and the child's own injuries from her recovery. The full original case appears at pages 460 through 466 of volume 74 of The New Hampshire Reports.
Prescott v. Robinson, 74 N.H. 460, 462 (1908).
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