Another abortion thread, but hear me out, 'kay?

I recently found out that even the early teachings of the Apostles addressed abortion. So my question for discussion is this:

How long do you think abortion has been around?
If it hasn't been around until the most recent centuries, why do you think it is mentioned in the Didache?
Any other comments on this?

 

There is evidence of abortion from as early as c. 1150, and I'm sure it's been around longer. It isn't a recent practice. People long ago used herbs with abortifacient properties or just straight up trauma to the abdomen. That's all I can come up with.

 

Abortion was around at the time of the Romans even. If the father didn't like the look of a child, a slave would carry it outside to the back garden and leave it there to die. Jars filled with babies' bones have been found in the back gardens.

 

Or even more in the past. Keyword: Ancient Greece -> Sparta

 

@ P: Well, that's not abortion though, it's killing a baby that has been born.

Which is just as bad.

 

The idea would mostly go back to earliest forms of human socialisations as a society. if a woman had become pregnant, if you wished to induce an abortion, you would mostly likely should've beaten the mother's stomach to induce it.

It's just not seen as morally right to abort a baby because it was considered by many relegions a form of murder, so that's most likely where the answer came from.

 

Makes sense. I actually did some research (Gasp shock horror!) and found out that the first forms of abortion date back before even the Trojan War.

They did it in the form of an abdominal massage.

 

Abdominal Massage as in, squeeze the baby till it gets crushed? wow.

 

This isn't about your opinions on abortion as you can comment in the thread on that. Keep on topic please.

As for the question itself, abortion has been around probably for an extremely long time. Mothers that cannot raise children would do it or as someone mentioned, leave the baby behind as animals do if they cannot care for the children due to extenuating unsafe circumstances. Parents also who did want a certain gender child would abandon or kill newborns of the wrong gender, which has gone on for at least a couple thousand years and still goes on today in some countries commonly. I can see abortion as probably having been around for thousands of years, though it is more common in the past that women had to have babies and -then- they were killed by the father or mother due to not wanting the baby. Women who gave themselves abortions... it was more deadly to them usually than just having the baby back when things were not so sanitary etc.