ABSTRACT
In 1965, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that was closely watched by Dr. Alan Guttmacher and his colleagues at the Association for the Study of Abortion (ASA). Founded the year before to advocate for the reform of abortion laws, ASA was a small, elite group based in New York City—a symbol of the emerging fight to legalize abortion. While many Americans were taking the birth control pill and talking openly about sex outside of marriage, abortion often remained taboo. The push to change abortion laws, it seemed, primarily appealed to a small group of highly educated, very liberal activists in the nation's largest cities.
