SAD we are regressing over 100 years when Animals had more rights then children ,replace the word fetus with puppy or kitten and PITA would be storming the state houses .The first case of child abuse was brought by the SPCA

Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children

HOWARD MARKEL and M.D.DEC. 14, 2009

“Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day,” the little girl testified. “She used to whip me with a twisted whip — a rawhide.

“I have now on my head two black-and-blue marks which were made by Mamma with the whip, and a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors in Mamma’s hand; she struck me with the scissors and cut me. … I never dared speak to anybody, because if I did I would get whipped.”

If the words sound depressingly familiar, it is because they could have come from any number of recent news accounts — or, for that matter, popular entertainment, like the recently opened movie “Precious,” which depicts the emotional and sexual abuse of a Harlem girl.

In fact, though, the quotation is from the 1874 case of Mary Ellen McCormack, below, a self-possessed 10-year-old who lived on West 41st Street, in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan. It was Mary Ellen who finally put a human face on child abuse — and prompted a reformers’ crusade to prevent it and to protect its victims, an effort that continues to this day.

Tellingly, the case was brought by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1874, there were no laws protecting children from physical abuse from their parents. It was an era of “spare the rod and spoil the child,” and parents routinely meted out painful and damaging punishment without comment or penalty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/health/15abus.html