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.

11. Ancient abortion methods included applying substances externally on the abdomen such as various ointments and creams, bruised corn boiled with vinegar, and boiled cypress leaves. Physicians, such as Galen, also recommended hot baths, blood letting, strenuous physical exercise, leaping, riding in a shaky carriage, carrying heavy weights, emotional shock, body massages with hot oil, or being vigorously shaken by two strong men.

12. Surgical abortion was well known in the ancient world though, due to lack of anesthetics and antibiotics, it was dangerous and painful. Celsus (c. 25 B.C.-A.D. 50) provides the most complete account of a dilatation and curettage (D&C) operation, which required placing one, sometimes two hands, into the uterus to straighten the fetus and then extracting the fetus with a hook. Ancient texts such as Diseases of Women, Superfetation, and On the excision of the foetus refer to a surgical tool called an embruosphaktes (“embryo-slayer”).

13. Ancient physicians clearly understood that abortifacients could damage the uterus, cause septic abortions, and generally endanger to the mother’s health. Ovid compares the dangers and wounds from war for men with the dangers from abortion for women.

14. Hippocrates alludes to abortion in his Hippocratic Oath. Some translators argue Hippocrates said he would not administer a woman “a pessary to produce an abortion.” Other interpretations suggest that Hippocrates actually said he would not “give a woman an abortive remedy.” In the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, the United States Supreme Court in 1973 dismissed the oath as an incorrect application of a historical precedent.

15. Physicians such as Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), Dioscorides (c. 40-90), and Pseudo-Galen (129-216) mention more “superstitious” abortifacients, such as crossing over the root of a cyclamen, the egg of a crow, a viper, or a stone bitten by a dog. Additionally, if a woman crosses the menstrual blood of another woman, she will have an abortion.

16. During the Middle Ages, abortion was tolerated because there were no laws against it. There were a variety of abortifacients, such as mixture known as a “cup of roots” and another called “A Cure for All Kinds of Stomach Aches.” A medieval female physician, Dame Trotula of Salerno, may have been the first woman gynecologist and administered a number of remedies for the “retention of menstrua,” which was sometimes a code for early abortifacients.

17. In Arabic society, the evidence of continuous uses of early abortifacients is abundant. When classical texts were reintroduced into the West via Arabic influence around the thirteenth century, Westerners had the knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman medicine as well as the superior knowledge regarding contraception and abortifacients from the Arabs.

18. During the Renaissance, abortion was still tolerated, though Renaissance scholars knew less about birth control and abortifacients than did their medieval, Islamic, and classical forerunners. Perhaps this is due to the move of medicine from apprenticeship to male- and theory-centered universities, the growing gap between physicians and midwives, and the desire for larger families.

19. The relative indifference of common law courts to a fetus changed in the 1600s in England when abortion after a fetus had “quickened” became manslaughter. However, any action before “quickening” that harmed the pregnancy was not considered criminal under common law in England and the United States.

20. Reports of attempted abortions by ingesting savin (oil from juniper bushes) were common in the early nineteenth century, as well as accidental deaths from savin overdose. Savin was the single most commonly employed abortifacient in the United States during this time.

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