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[40] Before that point was reached, Aristotle did not regard abortion as the killing of something human. [41] [42] [43] Aristotle considered the embryo to gain a human soul at 40 days if male and 90 days if female; before that, it had vegetable and animal souls. The Oath, ascribed to Hippocrates, forbade the use of pessaries to induce abortion.
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. [nb 1] [2] An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of all pregnancies.
For much of history, ending a pregnancy prior to "quickening" (the moment when a pregnant woman first feels fetal movement) did not have the type of legal or political restrictions and taboos found in the 21st century. [42] Early medieval laws did not discuss abortion prior to quickening.
Photos of what pregnancy tissue from early abortions at 5 to 9 weeks actually looks like have gone viral.. The images, which were originally shared by MYA Network — a network of physicians who ...
In 1975, West German abortion law changed to permit abortions at any time if there was a serious danger to the mother's health and in case of fetal abnormalities through 22 weeks, in addition to permitting some abortions for non-medical reasons before 12 weeks. [12] The law changed again during German reunification. In 2013, 4% of legal ...
The abortion debate most commonly relates to the induced abortion of a pregnancy, which is also how the term "abortion" is used in a legal sense. [nb 1] The terms "elective abortion" and "voluntary abortion" refer to the interruption of pregnancy, before viability, at the request of the woman but not for medical reasons. [39]
Before the 1980s, health professionals used the phrase spontaneous abortion for a miscarriage and induced abortion for a termination of the pregnancy. [ 25 ] [ 26 ] By the 1940s, the popular assumption that an abortion was an intentional and immoral or criminal action was sufficiently ingrained that pregnancy books had to explain that abortion ...
The Venerable Bede, in the Penitential ascribed to him by Albers c. 725, upheld the 40-day distinction, prescribing a one-year penance for abortion before the 40th day, and added that it makes a difference whether the woman was simply in financial desperation, or had conceived out of "harlotry".