Abortion: A Constant Controversy

Abortion is not a strictly twentieth-century phenomenon. It is an ancient art that predates the  rise of Western civilization and is common to primitive cultures.1 The earliest known reference to abortion seems to be a prescription for an oral abortifacient written by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in the period 2737-2696 B.C.2 The Code of Hammurabi, promulgated in 1728 B.C., also refers to abortion.3 Laws regarding abortion were published in both ancient Assyria and India.4

In ancient Greece, abortion, as well as infanticide, was a common practice, and was accepted as a means of limiting the population.5 Plato refers to abortion in his Republic. After prescribing the ages within which men and women should be allowed to bear children for the state, he suggests:

...giving them strict orders to do their best, if possible, to prevent any child, happily so conceived, from seeing the light but if that sometimes cannot be helped, to dispose of the infant on the understanding that the fruit of such a union is not to be reared.6

Aristotle, while philosophizing on the ideal state, also suggests infanticide and abortion as a means of birth control. He states that there should “be a law that no deformed child shall live but that on the grounds of an excess in the number of children.”7 However, if infanticide is forbidden by the customs of a given state “let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun.”8 To the Greek mind, the state took precedence over the individual.

The history of Rome reveals a change in the attitude toward abortion. The Twelve Tables (ca. 450 B.C.) permitted a father to expose any female infant or any deformed baby of either sex; and husbands could allow their wives to abort for “good reasons” only.9 By the time of the Principate (c. 30 B.C.), however, abortion was extremely common. Will Durant, in Caesar and Christ, quotes Juvenal as saying, “Nothing will so endear you to your friends as a barren wife.”10 And again: “Poor women endure the perils of childbirth, and all the trouble of nursing.... but how often does a gilded bed harbor a pregnant woman? So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, of the abortionist.”11

Although abortion was commonly practiced, it was not universally condoned.12 The Oath of Hippocrates (460-357 B.C.) reflects a strain of Greek thought contrary to that of Plato and Aristotle. It reads, in part: “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.”13 According to Michael Gorman (Abortion and the Early Church) the early Greek stoics also condemned abortion.14 The Code of Hammurabi, referred to earlier, prohibited abortions, as also did the laws of Tilglath-Pileser I , King of Assyria in the twelfth century B.C.15 Cicero approved capital punishment for deliberate abortion, and Caesar Augustus attempted to reform the practice of infanticide and abortion.16

The early church consistently condemned abortion. The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve, expressed the church's position in no uncertain terms: “The Way of Life is this: Thou shalt love first the Lord thy Creator, and secondly thy neighbor as thyself; and thou shalt do nothing to any man that thou wouldst not wish to be done to thyself.” It continues by showing the connection between the two great commandments and sexual ethics. “The second commandment in the Teaching means: Commit no murder, adultery, sodomy, fornication, or theft. Practice no magic, sorcery, abortion, or infanticide.17

Both the early Apologists and the later Church Fathers were in general agreement with the spirit of the Didache.18

The influence and attitude of the church were felt throughout the Middle Ages. Before the Norman Conquest (1066 A.D.), Anglo-Saxon law provided penalties against abortion.19 In the mid-thirteenth century, Henry De Bracton wrote: “If there be anyone who strikes a pregnant woman or gives her a poison whereby he causes an abortion, If the fetus be already formed or animated.... he commits homicide.20 Nearly one century later, Fleta, a commentator on Bracton, stated that “one is rightly a homicide” who causes a woman to have an abortion after the fetus was formed.21 Both Sir Edward Coke (1628) and Sir William Blackstone (1769) considered abortion a criminal offense.22

In the nineteenth century in the United States, there were major developments in “statue” law relating to abortion. Between 1820 and 1900, forty-three states passed anti-abortion statutes, and from 1900 to 1965, seven more states did the same.23 The driving force behind this legislative reform was the American Medical Association, which criticized the “quickening” doctrine of Aristotle and the Middle Ages as artificial and fallacious, being unsupported by advancements in medical knowledge.

After 1965, however, there was increasing pressure placed on state legislatures to liberalize (“reform”) abortion statutes in order to allow abortions when pregnancy or childbirth imposed a serious threat to the mother's “life or health.” These efforts culminated in the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

What is the value of this brief historical survey? First, it exposes the fallacious reasoning of those in the pro-abortion movement who argue that abortion, or sexual morality in general, should not be subject to civil legislation. The idea that “you can't legislate morality,” so often heard on the lips of abortion advocates, lacks historical verification, not to mention Biblical justification. The historical fact is, that civil law has never been indifferent to abortion. And neither should it be today. It is the pro-abortionists who are the historical anomaly, not pro-lifers. Perhaps our predecessors understood better than we, that the way of the womb is a test of civilization. Sexual depravity—that is, promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion, etc.—is a symptom of spiritual and cultural collapse.

Furthermore, we can and should learn that the pro-life battle is a perpetual battle. Eternal vigilance is the price of victory. We should not expect an easy victory or cheap triumph. Indeed, as we should see from history, the battle will never end in this life. As long as men live in rebellion toward God, there will be those who love death. As we conquer our foes, we must still maintain a standing army to defeat recurrent uprisings. Abortion is a constant controversy requiring endless effort; but the victory is ours If only we have the will to fight.

1. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage (New York, 1963), 49-50.

2. John J. Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today (Phillipsburg, N.J., 1985), 130.

3. ibid., 131.

4. Durant, op. cit., 376, 489.

5. idem., The Story of Civilization, vol 2: The Life of Greece (New York, 1966), 287. See also 468 for the attitude during Phillip's reign.

6. Plato, Republic 5.9.

7. Aristotle, Politics 7.1335b 20, et. seq.

8. ibid.

9. Michael J. Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish, and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World (Downers Grove, IL, 1982), 25.

10. Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 3: Ceasar and Christ (New York, 1972), 363.

11. ibid., 365.

12. See Gorman's treatment, op. cit., 13-46.

13. Quoted by Gorman, op. cit., 20.

14. Gorman, op. cit., 23-24.

15. Davis, op. cit., 131.

16. Gorman, op. cit., 26-27. See also Durant, vol. 3, 272.

17. M. Staniforth, ed. Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (London, 1968), 191.

18. See Gorman, op. cit., 47-74.

19. Thomas W. Hilgers and Dennis J. Koran, Abortion and Social Justice (Thaxton, VA, 1980), 122.

20. ibid.

21. ibid., 123.

22. See John D. Gorby, The “Right” to an Abortion, the Scope of Fourteenth Amendment “Personhood,” and the Supreme Court's Birth Requirements, Studies in Law and Medicine Series, No. 5 (Chicago, n.d.) 13-15 and Hilgers & Koran, op. cit., 123-124.

23. ibid., pp. 9-15; Hilgers & Koran, op. cit., 125-127; R. Tatalovich and B. W. Daynes, The Politics of Abortion: A Study of Community Conflict in Public Policy Making (New York, 1981), 18.