Ask the Internet which country was the first to legalize abortion and you’re likely to find some confusing answers, many of which point in one direction: Iceland.
It’s true that, 80 years ago, on Jan. 28 of 1935, Iceland’s “Law No. 38” declared that the mother’s health and “domestic conditions” may be taken into consideration when considering whether to permit doctors to perform an abortion. And, according to the 1977 book Abortion by Malcolm Potts, Peter Diggory and John Peel, that law stuck for decades.
However, there are a lot of caveats to that “first” label. For one thing, abortion spent centuries as neither illegal nor legal, before becoming formally legislated, which happened in the 19th century in many places. Iceland, then, was the first Western nation to create what we might now recognize as a common modern abortion legalization policy, with a set of conditions making the procedure not impossible but not entirely unregulated.
Some other nations that passed abortion laws before Iceland’s (like Mexico, for example) also included conditions, like rape, under which it would be permitted. And, as Robertson’s Book of Firsts clarifies, the Soviet Union had actually legalized abortion, on demand, more than a decade earlier. The difference was that (a) the Soviet law didn’t last, as that nation underwent a series of regime changes, and (b) the conditions for legality were different. Though abortion was later strictly limited in Russia, legalization was apparently no small thing when it was first introduced.
As TIME reported on Feb. 17, 1936:
A not entirely enthusiastic participant last week was Dictator Joseph Stalin at the celebration by massed Communist delegations from all over Russia of the tenth anniversary of the founding in Moscow of the Union of the Militant Godless. This unprecedented Jubilee of Godlessness could only be compared to that celebrated by Bolsheviks in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Legalization in Russia of Abortion.
Kingdom of Iceland: Vintage Photos From a Long-Ago Island
Caption from print: "The geysers of Iceland tell the story of the country's volcanic origin. The cameraman was especially lucky in being able to photograph the 'Great Geysir' in action. A huge jet of boiling water (reaching height of about 20 feet) spurts up from the earth. But then the resources of Nature are exhausted for quite a long time until another gigantic display like this overwhelm the spectators. On his visit to Iceland, the King of Denmark (who is also the King of Iceland) waited in vain for two days for an eruption of the geyser."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesIn the middle of green meadow-land boiling hot water spurts from earth. Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesWater bubbling and boiling in a geyser.Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesLooking into the crater of a mud volcano.Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA "mud volcano," practically inactive. The striking mud in its crater is continuously boiling, but is hardly ever expelled. All located in the Haukadalur geothermal area east of Reykjavik.Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Land without railroads. The roads in Iceland may seem inadequate to the American tourist, but in view of the rough climate and the sparse and scattered population the more than 1,330 miles of roads are an excellent achievement. For hours you sometimes drive on roads like this through miles and miles of lava fields which would be impassable for man or horse."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "A saddle-horse and a pack-horse are sufficient for the Icelander to cross wide tracts of barren country."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE: "The landscape of Iceland is almost treeless and, on the coastal fringe where Icelanders live, resembles the lonely moors of Scotland. The uninhabited interior highland, comprising four-fifths of the island, is strewn with lava, rocks, glaciers and snow fields. It looks bleak and desolate as the moon. Sheep-raising and fishing are the chief livelihoods of the Icelanders."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Sheep, numbering about 700,000, are the basis of Iceland's agriculture, furnish 80 percent of her exports. Photo shows an Iceland peasant shearing his sheep. During the summer, the sheep graze in complete freedom in the mountains and grass covered plateaus."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Wool is handled in the traditional primitive way. Here we see a farmer woman boiling the wool in a large pot, after which it will be carefully rinsed in the clear water of the brook."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Photo shows the primitive way in which wool is washed. While the women boil the wool in a large pot on an open fire, the men are occupied with rinsing it in the clear water of the brook."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Traveling is not always easy and comfortable in Iceland. When it has been raining for days, tents and night things are all drenched, you are very glad to find shelter in an old sheep-fold like this."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "There is hardly any country in the world as exposed to winds and storms as Iceland. They sweep the country and only once in a while formations like this remind us that in former times, the ground was considerably higher and covered with grass."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from print: "Fishing is one of Iceland's most important industries. Thousands and thousands of cod and haddock are caught in the winter and salted. On porous lava blocks at the foot of volcanoes the fish are dried in the sun."Pix Inc.—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
