And even in Western culture and common law up until the late 19th and early 20th century, a baby was not considered a separate human until the “quickening†which typically occurs around the 18th to 20th week. Causing a woman to miscarry or to abort was not a prosecutable offense until the quickening.
@Neverdul That is in fact, not true - Prosecutions were rare prior to quickening, but not nonexistent. And the reason it was seldom prosecuted is because determining pregnancy prior to the quickening was not so easy to do. The state of medicine could not support the legal fact. The mother might or might not be pregnant until her own witness of the child moving within...
Exactly right, @Neverdul. And abortion wasn't rare.
That,
@Suppressed , is an argument from silence. Colonial records are spotty at best. But if we are going to determine things upon such shoddy numbers, consider mine, like in kind:
In American Colonial times, it was known by the euphemism of "taking the trade," which is why many might not have realized how common it was.
An euphemism directly associated with 'the Craft'. While witches were always available, and often engaged in midwifery, Proper medicine railed against encouraging abortion, and in some accounts both in medical circles and in law, the teaching of the use of abortificants were directly prohibited.
Home medical guides described how to use common home herbs to do it, and it was perfectly legal prior to the quickening. In the 19th century, social acceptance was on the decline, but abortifacients were advertised openly -- and their use was ever increasing throughout the century.
First, the primary means of dealing with out-of-wedlock children was overwhelmingly marriage, or in the case of a married man upon an unmarried woman, a stipend (child support) was ordered to care for the child either until the woman married, or the child reached the age of apprenticeship (was taken on as an apprentice, generally around early teen), or until the child reached the age of majority.
In the second place, by far and away (never less than 3/4ths), the normal institution, marriage then children, was the norm, and in out of wedlock cases otherwise, by far and away, the next solution was marriage after the fact (or support for the child if the man was already married).
And the last safety net, the girl was sent away, either to a distant relative, or various 'young women's houses' (normally a church function) wherein the child was delivered and offered up in adoption.
In the
rare cases outside of those means, again, by far and away, the pregnancy was hidden, and infanticide performed after the fact. Only then do we start to address abortificents or abortion by mechanical means.
And the reason for that is plain: The primary abortificents used at the time, sevin and tansy, are horrifically poisonous. The woman was just as likely to die as the child. Secondary abortificents like wormwood and rue, were even more likely to cause death by poison. The other means, herb packings, primarily worked by causing massive infection. Slippery elm is one such, a stick inserted directly into the womb, and left there for days... causing infection that would certainly kill the child, and likely kill the mother, or leave her barren.
Your flippant post neglects the truth of it.
