Abortion which midwives usually worked were relatively safe. In addition, some commentators have written that, despite improved medical procedures, the period from the 1930s until legalization also saw more zealous enforcement of anti-abortion laws, and concomitantly an increasing control of abortion providers by organized crime. Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935) and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935 Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth
Abortion in the United States President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003, but a federal judge blocked its enforcement in several states just a few hours after it became public law. The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on the procedure in the case "Gonzales v. Carhart" on April 18, 2007, signaling a substantial change in the Court's approach to abortion law. The 5-4 ruling said the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act" does not conflict with previous decisions regarding abortion. The current judicial interpretation of the U.S. Constitution regarding abortion in the United States, following the Supreme Court of the United States's 1973 landmark