Abortion
New Information for Consideration
Recently I have come across some very interesting information on abortion. In the days of the Romans abortion was practiced and abortifacient drugs were used. In B.C. 81 the Cornelian Law was enacted against the use abortifacient drugs which not only aborted babies but threatened the life of the mother. Here are some quotes from ancient writers on the subject:
1. “If vicious ways like this had found favor with mothers of olden time, the race of mortal men would have perished from the earth…Why cheat the full vine of the growing cluster and pluck with ruthless hand fruit not yet in the green? What is ripe will fall itself – let grow what has become quick; a life is no slight reward for a short delay. Ah, woman, why do you thrust and pierce with the instrument, and give dire poisens [sic] to your children yet unborn?” [Ovid 43 B.C. - A.D. 17]
2. “Never have you in the manner of other women whose only recommendation lies in their beauty, tried to conceal your pregnancy as if an unseemly burden, nor have you ever crushed the hope of children that were being nurtured in your body.” [Seneca 4 B.C. – A.D. 65]
3.
“So great is the
skill so powerful the drugs of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within
the womb.” [Juvenal A.D. 60 – 140]
What did the early church say about
abortion?
1. “Thou shalt not procure; no shalt thou kill that which is begotten.” [Didache A.D. 100-120]
2. “Some when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder.” [Jerome A.D. 384]
These are two of the many statements made by the early church fathers during the
first four centuries.
One final thought from Hippocrates Oath, in Vol. 1 of 4 vols., Loeb Classical Library, p. 299 [Oath lines 18-20] Hippocrates in his oath regarding his attitude toward abortion, “neither will I administer a poisen (sic)(pharmakon) to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly (homoios), I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”
The environment of both the Greeks and Romans was one in which abortion was used to cover affairs, consequences of prostitution, population control and eugenics. Societies are no different and the reasons are the same but the bottom line is that abortion is still murder and even though legally permissible still morally wrong. For some of my other thoughts on abortion go to: INSPIRATION [Posted 1/2012]