Abortion according to the medical practitioners of Graeco-Roman antiquity: a highly dangerous practice

Abstract

A  great number of sources from ancient literature indicate that dur ing the period of Graeco-Roman antiquity abortion was considered a socially acceptable practice, which served the private interests of the women concerned and their families. It primarily contributed to what we would now call family planning and birth control. The central question the present article attempts to address is how did the doctors of the time approach the implementation of the above-mentioned practice. By reading mostly—gynaecological and embryological—ancient medical texts, it is indicated that in contrast to the prevailing perception of their time, the preponderance of ancient doctors approach abortion as a pure medical fact, the implementation of which is highly correlated with its degree of dangerousness and the side-effects on a woman’s life. In this sense, by technically reconstructing their theses on abortion, I attempt to highlight the following: a) that the determination of time and of abortion methods is, according to the doctors of antiquity, directly dependent upon the stages of conception and pregnancy, and b) that the degree of dangerousness is directly interrelated with the embryo status during each of the aforementioned stages. The main argument supported is that ancient physicians for the most part were in favor of therapeutic abortion alone, suggesting as the most appropriate time for its realization the first 30–40 days of pregnancy precisely because during this period the fetus goes through the very early stage of its fleshy structure and hence, the proposed abortion techniques are more effective and, at the same time, less dangerous for the health of a woman.