Classical civilizations legally tolerated abortion as a normal practice

Evidence

There are few subjects on which bourgeois society exhibits more hypocrisy: abortion is a repugnant crime to which it is indecent to make an allusion. For an author to describe the joys and suffering of a woman giving birth is perfectly fine; if he talks about a woman who has had an abortion, he is accused of wallowing in filth and describing humanity in an abject light: meanwhile, in France every year there are as many abortions as births. It is such a widespread phenomenon that it has to be considered one of the risks normally involved in the feminine condition. The law persists, however, in making it a misdemeanor: it demands that this delicate operation be executed clandestinely. … It is claimed to be a dangerous operation. But honest doctors recognize, along with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, that “abortion performed by a competent specialist, in a clinic and with proper preventative measures, does not involve the serious dangers penal law asserts.” It is, on the contrary, its present form that makes it a serious risk for women. The incompetence of “back-alley” abortionists and their operating conditions cause many accidents, some of them fatal. … It must be pointed out that the same society so determined to defend the rights of the fetus shows no interest in children after they are born; instead of trying to reform this scandalous institution called public assistance, society prosecutes abortionists; those responsible for delivering orphans to torturers are left free; society closes its eyes to the horrible tyranny practiced in “reform schools” or in the private homes of child abusers; and while it refuses to accept that the fetus belongs to the mother carrying it, it nevertheless agrees that the child is his parents’ thing … It must be added that the men who most respect embryonic life are the same ones who do not hesitate to send adults to death in war. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1416 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Abortion law’s moral horror is hypocritical condemnation that endangers women — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1416; A model penal law in 1962 reshaped physician and public opinion on abortion restrictions — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3083

Broader Connections

• Abortion law’s moral horror is hypocritical condemnation that endangers women #contradicts (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1416