Horatio Storer
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'''Horatio Robinson Storer''' ([[1830]]-[[1922]]) was an [[United States|American]] [[physician]] and campaigner against [[abortion]].
Storer was born in [[Boston, Massachusetts]] and attended the Boston Latin School, [[Harvard College]], and the Boston (Harvard) Medical School. After obtaining his M.D. in 1853 he traveled to Europe and spent a year studying with [[James Young Simpson]] at [[Edinburgh]]. He began medical practice in Boston in 1855 with emphasis on [[obstetrics]] and [[gynecology]].
In 1857, he started the "physicians' crusade against abortion" both in Massachusetts and nationally, when he persuaded the [[American Medical Association]] to form a Committee on Criminal Abortion. The Committee Report was presented at the AMA meeting in [[Louisville, Kentucky]] in 1859 and accepted by the Association. As a result, the AMA petitioned the legislatures of the states and territories to strengthen their laws against elective abortions.
By 1880 most states and territories had enacted such legislation. Although abortion continued,{{ref|Horatio_Storer1}} some women were persuaded to refrain from abortion by these new laws, and also by physician persuasion.
In 1865, Storer won an AMA prize for his essay aimed at informing women about the moral and physical problems of induced abortion. It was published as ''Why Not? A Book for Every Woman''. It was widely sold and many physicians distributed it to their patients who requested abortion.
Storer started the Gynaecological Society of Boston, the first medical society devoted exclusively to gynecology, in 1869. It quickly moved to publish the first gynecology [[journal]], the ''Journal of the Gynaecological Society of Boston''. In many respects, Storer can be considered the Father of American Gynecology.
==References==
# {{note|Horatio_Storer1}} Reagan, Leslie J., When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine and the Law in the United States, 1867-1973, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, p6, [q.v. chapter two].
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storer, Horatio}}
[[Category:American physicians]]
[[Category:American pro-life activists]]
[[Category:Boston Latin School alumni]]
[[Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:1830 births]]
[[Category:1922 deaths]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard Medical School alumni]]