Abortion in Ancient Rome (or Why I’m Glad I’m Living in the Present)
My newest hobby is arguing with prolifers on Twitter. Largely pointless and very frustrating, I know, but I need some way to practice my debating skills, right? During one such “conversation” recently, I was told that, “Abortion came from feminism.” When I informed my sparring partner that abortion has actually been practiced since ancient times, she replied, “Abortion DID NOT exist as it does now back in those days.”
For the sake of space, let’s stick to ancient Rome for now. It’s very important to note that both abortion and infanticide were practiced around the world long before Rome (the Romans actually picked up the practice of infanticide from the Greeks who favored it over abortion because it posed much less risk to the mother), but I have only so much space here.
Abortion in ancient Rome carried no shame along with it and was often not prosecuted. Generally speaking, a woman would only be charged with an illegal abortion if it was known she was pregnant and her husband had not wanted the abortion. Her husband was seen as the one against whom the “crime” was committed, not the fetus. Typical punishment for an abortion would be the loss of an eighth of her dowry following divorce, if her husband should wish to divorce her for the offense.
Roman doctors whose records we still have, such as Pliney the Elder, Dioscorides, Soreanus, and Paulus Aeginta, had laundry lists (not unlike the list Bailey wrote about from Cynthia Gorney’s book) of abortion techniques and potions. There were the obvious physical means: strenuous labor or bareback horseback riding. But physical forms of inducing abortion were believed to only be effective within the first 30 days of conception. And as any women who is or has been pregnant these days can tell you, determining time of conception is a tricky process; more so when one doesn’t have an ultrasound machine around to tell them how far along they are once they realize they’re pregnant.
Thus, more often than not, Roman women turned to various concoctions and potions to induce abortions. For a while, a plant known as Silphium was a favorite. When ingested, this plant was certain to cause an abortion. After a while though, Roman women stopped using Silphium. Because it went extinct. Yes, let me repeat that for you: So many women in ancient Rome sought abortions for undesired pregnancies that they caused en entire plant genus to go extinct.
There were literally hundreds of other plants believed to known to cause abortions. Wormwood (the good stuff they put in real absinthe to make you hallucinate), myrtle, wallflower…the list goes on. But there were also some non-plant things women would take orally and vaginally to induce abortions. Things like iron slag (pictured above). Iron slag is all the impurities that they melt out of the iron to make it usable. They also liked to use lead.
Wait now, isn’t lead extremely toxic? Why yes it is my friends! My Twitter sparring partner also said at one point during our conversation that night that if abortion were illegal, women wouldn’t seek it because it’d be too dangerous. Weeellllll, not so much. See, we have a precedent here of women risking their own lives to have an abortion. Now, granted in ancient Rome that was because carrying a pregnancy to term was about as potentially fatal as the abortion was. But in a country where many insurers don’t cover maternity care the maternal death rate is worse than some third-world countries, that doesn’t seem like as much of a stretch, does it?
1steph
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 12:54
Prochoice for the win.
I can’t stand arguing with antichoice people on twitter. It makes smoke come out of my ears just to read the back and fourth. I admire your patience. In the meantime, I will use my energy for activism instead of arguing
2freewomyn
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 15:38
Fascinating!
3Casey
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 19:12
Thank you for a very well-researched article on ancient abortions and their legal ramifications!
4Shanman
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 20:32
“After a while though, Roman women stopped using Silphium. Because it went extinct.”
One of the coolest things I learned as a Classical Civilizations undergrad.
5Rachael
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 22:52
This could have been an engaging article if the author had cited some sources. Are we to believe mass amounts of Roman abortions caused a plant species to go extinct? Again, cite your sources. Also, wormwood has been proven to not cause hallucinations. http://www.wormwoodsociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=251&Itemid=215
6Bailey
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 0:00
i so love the comment from the sparring partner that if abortion was illigal women wouldnt seek it…do they know nothing of history what so ever or even the common reference to coat hangers? come on now. i tried sparring on twitter and gave up i dont know how you do it, perhaps thats why i love you so.
7Manda
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 0:30
Ouch! Thanks for calling me out Rachael; citing sources is something I myself am often anal about. Rest assured that my future articles will include all sources at the end. For this one, allow me to list my sources here, all MLA style:
Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. (This was my main source)
McLaren, Angus. A History of Contraception from Antiquity to the Present Day. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990.
Tschanz, David W. Herbal Contraception in Ancient Times August 5 2003.
8Manda
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 0:44
Steph and Bailey – I don’t really know. Maybe I just like to argue, maybe deep down I think I’ll change someone’s mind, or maybe I’m just too easily baited and too strongly desire to get the last word in
I have taken a break from it though – I needed too after being told by a religious fanatic that he didn’t have to respect my religious beliefs. Religious intolerance makes me cry. 
9freewomyn
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 0:45
MLA style. How cute are you, Manda?
10Manda
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 0:57
Oh! I just realized it didn’t include the website address… Let me try this again:
Tschanz, David W. Herbal Contraception in Ancient Times August 5 2003.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-HealthScience%2FHSELayout&cid=1158321476806
11Ian
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 12:59
The Romans really liked to watch Gladiator’s kill each other too… I mean they did not exactly have an appreciation for life. They liked blood. They trained to kill and die well.
Of course, that was back then and barbaric practices like that have stopped.
Well, except for abortion and infanticide.
12Manda
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 13:45
Right, because we don’t, in our society, have vast numbers of people we’ve trained specifically just to kill people the government decides we don’t like or don’t want in power anymore. We don’t have an entire branch of the US military so dedicated to killing other human beings anyway possible that they have trouble functioning in normal civilian life after their time is up. Yeah, all those horrible barbaric practices are gone with the passage of time.
13Bailey
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 16:40
sigh
14renee
wrote on 22 October 2009 at 2:30
If you are opposed to “vast numbers of people trained specifically just to kill people they don’t like,” then why are you opposed to abortion?
15Manda
wrote on 22 October 2009 at 18:14
Is that directed at me Renee?
16Rachel
wrote on 10 November 2009 at 20:13
Have any of you ever read Won By Love by Norma McCorvey? It’s a good book. I’d encourage you to read it. I’ve been reading the book Manda used in her research as well. (Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance )Interesting.
17Katy
wrote on 1 December 2009 at 13:13
well, all of you pro-life obviously havent lived in a communist country. i have. where abortions were illegal and abortionists were prosecuted. and STILL thousands and thousands of women had abortions at home and many of them died as a result. try watching 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days by Cristian Mungiu, the film won a palm d’or at Cannes.
18Reesa
wrote on 28 January 2010 at 14:13
I dont care what you say. Read a little more into the pregnancy process, see how the baby develops then get back to me on why abortion is ok. Honestly its not right and I dont know how you can be ok with it.
19Allie
wrote on 4 March 2010 at 11:32
Reesa, how come it’s OK to force a woman to carry to term, but it’s not OK to require someone to be an organ donor after death, force someone to give up one of their kidneys, or even force someone to donate blood to save a dying, already born child (or anyone else, for that matter)?
It’s bodily integrity. It is the woman’s body, to do with as she will. Once the baby is born, the baby has bodily integrity as well as it is a discrete individual, but while it is still part of the woman’s body, SHE has the final say.
Honestly, it’s not right that your stance would require women to carry dead fetuses, fetuses whose defects are incompatible with life, that women would have to forgo treatments to save their own lives in lieu of the unborn, that you’d force women to be at the mercy of anyone who chooses to impregnate them against their will…I don’t know how you can be OK with that.
It is the woman’s choice, to carry or not to carry. Abortions are not lightly undertaken, and I’m very happy we have the right to make our own decisions.