Anti-Abortionism

Anti-Abortionism is an ideology that stands against abortion.

Pre-Modern
The earliest recorded laws against abortion come from the Assyrian Empire, whose legal code (11th century BCE) states; "If a woman with her consent brings on a miscarriage, they sieze her and determine her guilt.  On a stake they impale her and do not bury her".

The Ancient Greeks were generally not against abortion. However, there were exceptions; the ancient Hippocratic Oath declared "I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion". The philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (6th century BCE) believed that life began at conception; the ancient historian Diogenes Laertius, describing the beliefs of Pythagoras, said "when brought to the womb ... soul and sense come from the vapour within" (Lives VIII.28). The same source records how Pythagoras "forbade even the killing, let alone the eating, of animals which share with us the privilege of having a soul" (VIII.13). By extension he likely would have opposed abortion.

The early Christian church was almost universally anti-abortion. The Didache (1st century CE) declared "you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten" (chapter II). Athenagoras of Athens (2nd century CE) wrote "we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder" (Plea XXXV). Tertullian (2nd century CE) wrote "we may not destroy even the fœtus in the womb" (Apology IX). Christian lawyer Minucius Felix (3rd century AD) identified abortion with murder "There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth" (Octavius XXX). Basil the Great (4th century CE) wrote clearly, "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder" (Letter CLXXXVIII.ii) and "Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses" (Letter CLXXXVIII.viii).

John Calvin, an early leader of the Protestant Reformation, wrote "the foetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, ( homo,) and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy"

[W.I.P.]

Modern
[W.I.P.]

Friends

 * [W.I.P.]

Frenemies

 * [W.I.P.]

Enemies

 * [W.I.P.]

Wikipedia

 * Anti-abortion movements
 * Fetal rights
 * Anti-abortion violence
 * Anti-abortion feminism