Abortion has been around for over a thousand years. Since the first settlers in the United States, abortion has been legal. States started to pass laws that made abortion illegal in the mid to late 1800s. Anti-abortion laws varied from state to state. Performing abortions in the 1800s was extremely risky along with other surgical procedures. Antiseptics were unknown and hospitals were not common. Rates during childbirth of maternal and infant mortality were extremely high, without the technology of today. Women who went to untrained practitioners for abortions died or suffered medical problems afterward.