INVESTIGATES: Abortion

1. The term “abortion” is from the Latin abortus (ab- “amiss” + oriri- “appear to be born, arise.”)

2. The Egyptian Kahun Papyrus (1850 B.C.) suggests crocodile feces either for preventing conception or as an abortifacient. In Arabic medicine, elephant feces were frequently recommended. The Ebers Papyrus (1550 B.C.) contains several recipes that “cause a woman to stop pregnancy in the first, second, or third period.” One recipe for a vaginal suppository includes combining the unripe fruit of Acacia, colocynth, dates, and 6/7 pints of honey and pouring the mixture onto a moistened plant fiber.

3. Modern Arabic women still take colocynth as an abortifacient, though one woman who took 120 grains in a powder died 50 hours later.

4. While there has never been complete agreement about when a fetus becomes a person, the major sentiment in ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Roman thought was that there could be no living soul in an “unformed” and/or “unquickened” body and, hence, the law of homicide could not apply if a fetus was aborted before that time. However, other scholars, such as Basil, the bishop of Caesarea in Asia Minor (c. A.D. 330-379), called feticide murder at any point of development.

5. Aristotle suggests that the conceptus had a “soul” after 40 days from conception if a male and 90 if female (for a similar differentiation, see Leviticus 12:1-5 in the Bible). Later, Aristotle says that the fetus develops “little by little” and that one cannot make fine judgments.

6. The Stoics thought the soul came when the fetus was exposed to cool air, although the potential was present at conception. Plutarch and Tertullian both ridiculed that idea because babies born in hot climates or in warm rooms were certainly alive.

7. Ancient Hebrew religious law regarded a woman pregnant at 40 days after conception and, therefore, abortion before that could not be considered criminal.

8. There was an endless list of oral drugs to abort a fetus from before the time of Hippocrates (460 B.C.) and into the Middle Ages. A few examples include clover mixed with white wine, Edderwort mixed with vinegar and water, mountain rue, birthwort mixed with pepper and mint, white hellebore, shepherd’s purse, squirting cucumber, stinking iris, pomegranate, and even a poisonous fish the color of a hare.

9. Ancient physicians also used pessaries, or vaginal suppositories, as abortifacients. They were usually more potent than oral drugs and included substances like the juice of the wild fig, a “milky liquid” which caused irritation, soap-wort, myrrh, myrtle, lupine, cedar-oil mixed with water, wine, or hot oil. Physicians also recommend smearing on the uterine opening goose fat, mashed leek and celery, rose oils, pine resin, copper scum, boiled honey, sodium carbonate, and even mouse dung.

10. Some ancient pessaries were similar to Utus paste, a substance injected directly into the uterus as a method of abortion in Europe and the United States until the 1960s, but eventually condemned as unsafe. Use of Utus paste to terminate pregnancy, however, can still be found in many developing countries.

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