Let's be clear about what was illegal, because the radical definition, 'life begins at fertilization', is a recent innovation[1]:
> Abortion was not always a crime. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law.[22] Abortions were illegal only after "quickening," the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). The common law's attitude toward pregnancy and abortion was based on an understanding of pregnancy and human development as a process rather than an absolute moment. Indeed, the term abortion referred only to the miscarriages of later pregnancies, after quickening.
[1] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967n...