Page:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization - Court opinion draft, February 2022.pdf/20

20 quick child was at least "a heinous misdemeanor," 1 St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 129-130 (1803) (Tucker's Blackstone), and that edition also included Blackstone's discussion of the proto-felony-murder rule, 4 Tucker's Blackstone 200-201. Manuals for justices of the peace printed in colonies in the 18th century typically restated the common law rule on abortion, and some manuals repeated Hale's and Blackstone's statements that anyone who prescribed medication "unlawfully to destroy the child" would be guilty of murder if the woman died. See, e.g., J. Parker, Conductor Generalis: Or the Office, Duty and Authority of Justices of the Peace 220 (1788); 2 R. Burn, Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer 221–222 (7th ed. 1762) (English manual stating the same).

The few cases available from the early colonial period corroborate that abortion was a crime. See generally Dellapenna 215–228 (collecting cases). In Maryland in 1652,