Champion of Women and the Unborn: Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D.

In Champion of Women and the Unborn: Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D., Frederick Dyer brings to life a tremendously important figure in the history of the American pro-life movement. The Horatio R. Storer we meet in this book is an utterly fearless physician, completely dedicated to preserving and improving the health of women, an outspoken man who takes on any and all comers in a long career that made him one of the most prominent physicians of the 19th century.

It would be difficult to exaggerate Dr. Storer's role in combating abortion, even though he is not well known today. More or less single-handedly, Storer (1830-1922) started what one historian labeled the "physicians' crusade against abortion." In 1857 Storer enlisted the then-fledgling American Medical Association (AMA), which appointed him the chair of a committee to look into the status of induced abortion in the United States.

Two years later, with the assistance of seven prominent physicians whom he helped select, Storer produced a report that was unanimously adopted by the AMA. Among other recommendations, the report called for enacting laws in every state against abortion.

But Storer was just getting started. During 1859, Storer used the pages of the North American Medico-Chirurgical Review to compose nine scientific articles in favor of the initiatives that had come out of the AMA.

According to Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.,

Besides these legal and political efforts, Storer recognized the need to change the minds and hearts of those who sought or acquiesced in abortion. In 1865 he published a popular book entitled Why Not? A Book for Every Woman designed to convince the reader of both the criminality and the deleterious effect of induced abortion upon women. A year later he produced Is It I? A Book for Every Man. Both volumes sold in the thousands. James Mohr's Abortion in America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978, pp. 240-41) credits these books with a significant decrease in the number of abortions among married women.

Nearly every state legislature and territory went on to pass laws protecting the unborn. Most of these protective laws remained in effect until the Supreme Court obliterated ...