t groups far exceeded that of British and Northern European Protestants. One cause of the difference in birthrates was due to the acceptance of abortion among Protestant Americans. Antiabortion physicians exploited the public's fears about future changes in the ethnic composition of the population to generate support for changes to abortion law: "Eugenic concerns, expressed as a fear of race suicide through the failure to have enough children, motivated and were relied upon by physicians advocating abortion restrictions" (Tribe, 1990, p. 32).
Another social factor influencing abortion law in the 19th century was improvements in the status of women. Working class married white women sought to limit the number of children they bore so that the family could more easily exist on the wages of the male head of household. Controlling the family size enhanced the husband's prestige as a good provider: "The good bourgeois wife was to limit her fertility, symbolize her husband's affluence, and do good within the world" (Brief, 1994, p. 12). When women's involvement
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