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 Zimbabwe if the child may be born with serious physical or mental defects, or if the fetus was conceived as a result of rape or incest. Under the former law, the latter two conditions were not circumstances under which a legal abortion could be obtained. Although the new law expanded abortion access, it did not go far enough for some: Jacquie Stafford, president of the National Organisation for Women, wrote in a letter to "The Herald" that the law "showed nothing but contempt for the women of this country, and makes me wonder at the sanity of our parliamentary representatives." After