Abortion is ancient history: Long before Roe, women terminated pregnancies

By Katie Hunt, CNN
Fri June 23, 2023

Abortion today, at least in the United States, is a political, legal and moral powder keg. But for long stretches of history, terminating an unwanted pregnancy, especially in the early stages, was a relatively uncontroversial fact of life, historians say.

Egyptian papyrus, Greek plays, Roman coins, the medieval biographies of saints, medical and midwifery manuals, and Victorian newspaper and pamphlets reveal that abortion was more common in premodern times than people might think.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/health/abortion-is-ancient-history-and-that-matters-today-scn/index.html


The history of Catholic teaching on abortion isn’t as clear cut as you think

The history of Catholic teaching on abortion isn’t as clear cut as you think
Its position has hardly been “unchangeable” throughout the past two millennia.

Molly Monk
Jan—16—2020

Even though 56 percent of U.S. Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, it’s a commonly held belief that being “pro-choice” is incompatible with being Catholic. That’s not surprising, given the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion seems pretty clear cut: abortion is a murder. The Catechism of the Catholic Church even says, “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”

That’s not exactly true, though.

Continued: https://theoutline.com/post/8536/catholic-history-abortion-brigid?zd=1&zi=e7p376ws


In medieval Ireland, saints performed abortions. It was a lesser sin than oral sex

In medieval Ireland, saints performed abortions. It was a lesser sin than oral sex
Those who support legal and safe abortion might better reflect a ‘medieval’ Irish Catholic attitude than those who oppose it

April 19, 2018
Maeve Callan

People on all sides of the abortion debate tend to share an assumption, regardless of their personal views on the issue: Catholicism allows only one attitude toward abortion, that it is among the worst sins, an unconscionable evil. Proponents of women’s rights over their own bodies often criticise anti-abortion legislation as “medieval”, with the Irish Constitution’s Eighth Amendment regularly characterised as such. And yet medieval biographies of multiple Irish Catholic saints, including beloved Brigid of Kildare, reverently record abortions among their miracles, and medieval Irish Catholic penitentialists, priestly authorities who prescribed penances for sins and were often celebrated as saints themselves, treated abortion as a relatively minor offence.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/in-medieval-ireland-saints-performed-abortions-it-was-a-lesser-sin-than-oral-sex-1.3466881