Abortion

TRIVIA

Women greatly outnumbered men among early converts. However, in the Roman Empire as a whole, men vastly outnumbered women. Widespread female infanticide had reduced the number of women in society. Frequent abortions "entailing great risk" (in the words of Celsus) killed many women and left even more barren.
The Christian community, however, practised neither abortion nor infanticide and thus drew to itself women.

In the Middle Ages if a pregnant woman was having pains, it was often thought it was because she had kittens crawling inside her womb as a result of a witches curse. As a result abortions were often allowed by courts in order to remove these cats from the womb. The phrase “Someone is having kittens” originates from this.

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? If your answer was yes- congratulations you would have killed Beethoven!

TIMELINE

C1250 The first reference to abortion in English law appeared in the 13th century, when the law followed Church teaching that abortion was acceptable until “quickening”. This, it was believed, was when the soul entered the foetus at around 13 weeks.
1921 Abortions at the woman’s request were allowed for the first time in post-revolutionary Russia.
1967 In Britain, the Abortion Act legalised abortion, making it free on demand and available on the National Health Service.
1973 In America the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade overturned all state laws restricting abortion. As a result abortions became legal during the first six months of pregnancy.
2003 There were 181,600 legal abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2003, a rise of 5,700-3.2% on the year before
Over 4 in 1o Americans think that having an abortion is acceptable behaviour.
2005 There were three abortions in the UK for every ten births-a total of 190,000 terminations in England and Wales every year. The average British woman will have 2.2 healthy pregnancies in her lifetime, but will give birth to only 1.7 children. The number of abortions accounts for the difference. This is not enough to keep the UK population stable. From Britain In Numbers: The Essential Statistics by Simon Briscoe

QUOTES

Hilarion writing to his pregnant wife in Roman times: "If you are delivered of a child, if it is a boy, keep it, if it is a girl discard it."

Douglas Gresham (son of CS Lewis): “Europe and America now worship Satan and you cannot expect your society to be protected by God if you sacrifice millions of unborn children at the altar of convenience.”

Ronald Reagan: “I’ve noticed that everybody who is for abortion has already been born.”

Psalm 139 v 13 “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.”