In the earliest written sources, abortion is not considered as a general category of crime. Rather, specific kinds of abortion are prohibited, for various social and political reasons. In the earliest texts, it can be difficult to discern to what extent a particular religious injunction held force as secular law. In later texts, the rationale for abortion laws may be sought in a wide variety of fields including philosophy, religion, and jurisprudence. These rationales were not always included in the wording of the actual laws.

Ancient sources Many indigenous people have had access to herbal abortifacients, emmenagogues, and contraceptives, which had varying degrees of effectiveness. Some of these are mentioned in the earliest literature of the ancient world. However, citations for abortion related matters are scarce in the earliest written texts.

Social considerations

In the ancient world, discussions of offspring limitation, whether through contraception, abortion, or infanticide, were often linked with discussions about population control,The Return of Quetzalcoatl – Chapter 17 the property rights of the patriarch, The kindness of strangers: the abandonment of children in Western Europe footnote 21, By John Boswell and the regulation of women engaged in unsanctioned sex.Spivack, Carla, To Bring Down the Flowers: The Cultural Context of Abortion Law in Early Modern England. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1132482 Cicero explains:"I remember a case which occurred when I was in Asia: how a certain woman of Miletus, who had accepted a bribe from the alternative heirs and procured her own abortion by drugs, was condemned to death: and rightly, for she had cheated the father of his hopes, his name of continuity, his family of its support, his house of an heir, and the Republic of a citizen-to-be.""In Defence of Cluentius", Cicero as cited in Greek and Roman Attitudes To Abortion at Google Docs

Families wealthy or poor may have had different reasons for practicing offspring limitation. The wealthy may have been concerned about breaking a large inheritance into numerous smaller portions for many heirs. A poor family may have been unable to feed a large number of children.Boswell, "The kindness of strangers: the abandonment of children in Western Europe", pg.14, footnotes 20, 21

Aristotle held positions which align with twentieth-century eugenics arguments. In his view, abortion and infanticide were permissible when they accorded with the welfare of the state. He advocated mandatory exposure (to the elements) of children born with 'deformities,' and deemed abortion advisable when a couple had exceeded a quota of children, or when a couple had conceived passed their optimal childbearing age,Evangelos Protopapadakis, "Should the baby live? Abortion and infanticide: when ontology overlaps ethics and Peter Singer echoes the Stoics" in Ancient Culture, European and Serbian Heritage, Series: "Antiquity and modern world", Scientific Publications of the Serbian Society for Ancient Studies, Novi Sad 2010, v. IV, pp. 396–407, . Aristotle, "Politics", Book 7, 16, 20, as cited in Greek and Roman Attitudes To Abortion at Google Docs. as he believed that the eudaimonia of the individual was entwined with the welfare of the state. Plato held views similar to Aristotle's.

In Hindu scriptures, the matter is interpreted as reflecting a concern for the preservation of the male seed of the three "pure" castes, with the meaning of one word associated with abortion, bhrūṇahan, being "the killer of a learned Brahmin". Offspring limitation facilitated the financial stability of the influential families, preserving social order, and the males of these castes were required to perform important religious rituals.ABORTION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF EASTERN RELIGIONS: HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM Constantin-Iulian Damian, Romanian Journal of Bioethics, pg. 128, Vol. 8, No. 1, January – March 2010 While caste mixing was severely condemned, abortion was not recommended, and the texts elaborated a complex set of rules for the social integration of people born of such unions.

Of some concern in all these discussions is the ability of the woman to conceal her pregnancy in the early stages, and to terminate an unwanted pregnancy through the use of herbs or, more rarely, crude surgery. Since menses may be interrupted by medical conditions other than pregnancy, a woman taking an emmenagogue could not necessarily be accused of attempting abortion, even if she did lose a fetus with the bringing on of stopped menses. Therefore, social control of childbirth, essential to the preservation of the social order, could only effectively be exercised after quickening. While the issue of child sacrifice may be included in such discussions, as part of a larger discussion of social attitudes toward children, it is a matter separate from abortion. In general, anything sacrificed to the gods is sacrificed precisely because it is valued by society and is therefore deemed an appropriate gift to the gods.

Religious and philosophic considerations

It was not until the Axial Age that religious text began to include explorations of more philosophic concepts, which often involved considerations of the nature of man, which in turn involved considerations of the nature of the soul. There were three main views that had various impacts on the question of abortion: a belief that this material world is accompanied by an incorporeal one, a belief that matter is an illusion and everything is incorporeal, and a belief that everything, including the soul is material in nature. The ancient Egyptians developed a complicated five part version of the nature of man, including both a soul (similar to a modern ghost) and a spirit (similar to the Buddhist stream of consciousness).See Ghosts in ancient Egyptian culture The later Vedic literature, the Atharvaveda and Upanishads, held a doctrine of a World soul and an eternally reincarnating soul that enters the new physical body at conception. At times, these two kinds of soul were believed to be of the same substance. Many Greeks believed in panpsychism (that all things have an individual soul), while others believed that individuals emanate from a World soul, made of a different substance; and it is possible that Plato believed in elements of both.Panpsychism in the West

Believers in transmigration of souls had varying opinions. Buddhism rejected the Hindu notion of an eternal soul atman, positing an ephemeral "stream of consciousness" that enters the physical body at conception. Judaism and Islam also taught various forms of pre-existence of a soul created by God, but believed in only one earthly incarnation, and that the soul enters the body at conception. Plato believed that the pre-existent soul enters the body at first breath.

The Stoics considered the fetus to be a part of the woman's body and held that the soul (the pneuma) enters the body when the newborn takes its first breath. Even then, the Stoics believed the child is neither rational being nor moral agent until 14 years of age. Aristotle proposed a theory of progressive ensoulment, stating that the fetus acquired first a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, then a rational soul, with the male providing the "rational soul" that animated the fetus at 40 days after conception. Opinion in the Islamic world differed as to whether the soul was "blown into" the fetus at 40 days or 120., Abortion, Tariq Mahmood Hashmi Anglo-Saxon medical texts held that a fetus was "a man without a soul" until after the third month.

Generally, the question of the morality of abortion involved the question of the nature of the "animating principle", usually called the "rational soul", when the animating principle entered the body, whether it was an integral part of the bodily form and substance, whether it was pre-existent and subject to reincarnation or pre-existence, and whether a reincarnating soul might suffer as a result of the abortion. On these bases, some societies allowed infanticide of the newborn prior to its first breath (Stoic) or first nourishment (Germanic tribes), while some had differing laws for abortion depending on whether quickening had occurred.

Hippocratic Oath

The Hippocratic Oath is a code of professional conduct that can be compared with a set of similar edicts set down by Confucius.Principles and Practice of Confucianism in Medicine Today, By Dr. Khong Kok Sun It is often cited as evidence of abortion attitudes in ancient Greece.

In Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court questioned the validity of this source, noting that "the Oath originated in a group representing only a small segment of Greek opinion and that it certainly was not accepted by all ancient physicians."Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1972). Findlaw.com. Retrieved 2007-01-26

The clause referencing abortion has been questioned on a number of grounds. Authorship of this and other sections has been questioned as the language reflects Pythagorean influence; it has been suggested that he is specify that he would not give a pessary to a woman because that would abrogate the husband's prerogative in the matter, and is at odds with Hippocrates' own conduct when asked by a friend to provide an abortion for her slave girl whom the kinswoman had been using as a prostitute. He describes the kind of abortion he prescribed, and records no indication of his opinion of the slave's profession.Hippocrates, "On the Nature of the Child", as cited in Intercourse, conception and pregnancy. Cos, fourth century BC (Hippocrates, On the Generating Seed and the Nature of the Child 4–7, 13, 30.4=VII.474-80, 488–92, 536–8 Littré. Tr. I.M. Lonie. G, available at Elsewhere, he gives instruction on how to cause an abortion through blood-letting.

Legal opinions

The earliest texts almost uniformly preach respect for human life; but a reading of these passages must be balanced with passages meting out harsh and often horrific punishment for social transgressions of lower caste individuals against the upper castes. In Rome, the Twelve Tables were published only in response to "demands of the people".Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume IV. Chapter XLIV : Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence, as cited at

The value of a human being varied according to rank and social circumstances. (Thus, even an upper class male might be considered a mere boy until well into his later years; with the term "boy" having a meaning similar to slave.) The kindness of strangers: the abandonment of children in Western Europe, pg. 27–28, By John Boswell A slave woman might be punished by her master if he disapproved of her abortion, regardless of who the father was, because she destroyed his property. The monetary value of human beings is reflected in the value of fines paid for personal crimes, which varied in accordance both with the rank of the offender and of the victim. In Lev. 27:6, an infant of one month or less has no monetary value.

Religious law