quickening

My entire professional life has been in direct opposition to the radical ideology he’s adopted at a quickening rate since Trump first descended that escalator.

In his “Commentaries,” Blackstone argued that life “begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb,” known as “quickening.”

Following those legal parameters, then, Anglo-American law protected women’s ability to obtain an abortion prior to quickening — sometimes as late as 25 weeks into pregnancy.

It’s important to note that quickening was a subjective standard determined by the pregnant person themselves, providing bodily autonomy under the common law.

For much of the nation’s past, most historians understand, abortion was permitted until quickening, the point at which a woman could detect fetal movement.