(Archived document, may contain errors) ' March 11, 1980 THE ABORTION RIGHT A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT 0 F UNIQ UE C HA RA C TER SHORT HISTORICAL SUMMARY Before the American abortion movement began in the 1960s abortion was solely a matter of state criminal law and almost all of the state laws had remained unchanged .for a century At the beginning of the American Republic, abortion was one of the many areas of the law control led by the traditions of the English common law and, therefore, was not a matter for state statutes.