Medieval penance graded abortion severity by fetal age and by motive

Evidence

A Middle Ages penitential book declares: “If a pregnant woman destroys her fruit before forty-five days, she is subject to a penitence of one year. For sixty days, three years. And finally, if the infant is already animated, she should be tried for homicide.” The book, however, adds: “There is a great difference between a poor woman who destroys her infant for the pain she has to feed it and the one who has no other reason but to hide a crime of fornication.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 274

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Class stratification of moral culpability here echoes the dress-moral-panics pattern in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ where poverty vs. vice motives determine condemnation.
• XREF: connects to: Medieval theology dated ensoulment at 40 days for males and 80 for females; Christianity’s ensoulment doctrine made abortion a crime against the fetus; A model penal law in 1962 reshaped physician and public opinion on abortion restrictions — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3083