Historia Demográfica Del Aborto

Towards a Demographic History of Abortion
Author(s): Etienne van de Walle

Source: Population: An English Selection, Vol. 11 (1999), pp. 115-131
Published by: Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques
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TOWARDS A DEMOGRAPHIC
HISTORY OF ABORTION
Etienne Van de WALLE*
Mention demography, and numbers and ratios automatically spring

to mind. And yet many aspects of historical populations are known only
through descriptions that have no numerator or denominator. Abortion is
a case in point. It is mentioned in the literature of every period, but what
was its incidence? Was it a marginal event, with an aura of drama that
drew the chroniclers, but limited to some of the more dissolute members
of high society? Medical and legal sources also report abortions: were these
textbook cases or the reflection of everyday practice? The religious and
moral authorities fulminated against abortion, but does the vehemence of
their accusations give the true measure of its frequency? What was the
demographic impact of abortion? Only a quantitative approach could ans-
wer such questions.
Much has been written about the religious, legal and moral aspects
of abortion. The genesis of the position adopted until recently by the Wes-
tern world - namely, the almost unconditional condemnation of abortion -
has been the subject of a number of classic and virtually definitive studies
(Connery, 1977; Nardi, 1971; Noonan, 1970). The question of its demo-
graphic import has, in contrast, barely been broached. Recently, historians
have suggested that abortion was part of an array of birth control methods
in common use among couples living in the past (McLaren, 1990; Riddle,
1992, 1997). In this, they echo many earlier commentators who gave abor-
tion as one of the causes of the depopulation of the Greek and Roman
world.
The present article takes a minimalist stand. I propose to examine

with scepticism the arguments on the demographic impact of abortion prior
to 1800. This terminulis ad qluem was chosen to exclude the demographic
transition whose onset in Western populations occurred during the 19th
century: the study must be limited to regimes of 'natural fertility', a ca-
tegory that (in the absence of contrary evidence) I take to encompass all
: Population Studies Ceniter, University of Penniisylvaniia.
Population: An English Selection, 11, 1999, 115-132
116 E. VAN DE WALLE
historical populations. Following Louis Henry, I define natural fertility as

the fertility of married couples who do not deliberately attempt to limit
their family size. A natural fertility regime does not preclude abortion or
contraception (outside marriage, for instance, or to space births within mar-
riage), but couples do not use them to limit the number of their children.
This is a topic that reaches far beyond the scope of the present article.
Here, I shall simply suggest a possible approach and give examples to
illustrate why some fundamental distinctions must be made in the study
of abortion. My conclusion will be that although abortion has always exis-
ted, it was a rare occurrence in the past, generally reserved for non-marital
conceptions, and so had little impact on the fertility level, which depended
principally on the behaviour of married couples. In particular, it had little
effect on the natural fertility level and was not used with the purpose of
restricting family size.
I. - Some principles for interpreting the evidence
The data base does not consist of abortions, but of references found
in the literature to occurrences of abortion. I intend to compile, and to
verify where possible against the original source, all the quotations men-
tioning abortion in Western history, regardless of whether or not I agree
with the author's own interpretation of them. As a starting-point, I took
the works systematically reviewing abortion and birth control practices in
the past, principally Himes (1936), Bergues et al. (1960), Nardi (1971),
Noonan (1970), McLaren (1984, 1990), and Riddle (1992, 1997). These
provided the initial data file, which I am gradually expanding by adding
the references I find in monographs or articles. This is a long range task,
and I am a long way off an inventory of all the allusions to abortion in
Western history, with the exception of antiquity. I will test my methodo-
logy on that era. For more recent times, I have only provisional indications
for the moment.
The available material is absolutely not representative of the whole

population, and the nature of the selection bias is a permanent concern.
The upper classes are over-represented, and the opponents of abortion al-
ways predominate. An attempt must nonetheless be made to evaluate the
frequency of the references, even if they cannot indicate the frequency of
abortion itself. It is important not to generalize from fictional writings or
exegeses of dubious representativeness: an allusion to abortion in one of
Juvenal's satires tells us little of the practices of his time. But a denomi-
nator can sometimes be found, for instance the total number of lawsuits
in legal archives where cases of abortion are inventoried. An idea of the
relative importance of abortion can also be obtained by comparing the ref-
erences to abortion with references to its alternatives, infanticide and con-
traception. One can conclude, in agreement with Hopkins (1965), that there
TOWARDS A DEMOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF ABORTION 117
are more allusions to abortion than to contraception under the Roman Em-
pire. It is cited less than infanticide, however, at that time.
The body of references to abortion can itself serve for a frequency

analysis. While one must not read too much into ambiguous allusions, the
details given in the available descriptions should be given proper attention.
They suggest the context in which the abortion was performed, and the
deinographic weight of this context may vary. For instance, if the abortions
cited by moralists concern principally prostitutes and adulterous relations,
then the proportion of prostitutes in the population and the frequency of
adultery will be the appropriate denominators. An absence of allusions to
abortion can also be significant: they are strikingly rare, for instance, in
the libertine literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, and this suggests
that abortion held little interest for its readers.
Another caveat: beware the 'witnesses for the prosecution'. Drama-

tization and exaggeration are in the interest of the opponents of abortion.
The most trustworthy witness is the one who discusses the arguments for
and against, who tolerates a procedure that is regrettable per se in the
name of particular circumstances. To establish facts, physicians are more
reliable than theologians.
Finally, the current state of knowledge and technology should always

be borne in mind. In medical or pharmacological works, abortifacients were
often classed alongside love potions, treatments for the plague or syphilis,
etc. which are now known to be totally ineffective. Some products extracted
from plants - rue, savin, ergot - and administered orally or as pessaries
may have been emmenagogic (inducing menstruation) or ocytocic (inducing
delivery), but even today our understanding of such effects is very scanty.
Their effectiveness under past conditions of utilisation has not been estab-
lished. Speaking of savin, an extract from a species of juniper (Jlunzipertlis
Sabina) which was used throughout Europe as an oral abortifacient, Potts
et al. (1972, p. 172) comment: "Perhaps all that can be said of it is that
no other therapeutic agent has been so widely used, for so specific a the-
rapeutic purpose, and yet so little studied in animals and never once scien-
tifically investigated in man - or woman". As for the surgical methods of
abortion, the lack of antisepsis meant that the woman's life was always
endangered.
II. - The sources and contexts in antiquity
Soine necessary distinctions To evaluate the demographic impact of

abortion, some fundamental distinctions
between different categories of abortion must be made. The examples pre-
sented here are all taken from antiquity, a period which has several ad-
vantages for this study. First, the inventory of references to abortion found
in Greek or Latin works is probably just about exhaustive. All the inter-
118 E. VAN DE WALLE
pretations - whether minimalist like mine or maximalist - are based on the

same small set of references, 120 in all for the period down to 500 A.D.
The principal work from which I borrow here is that of Nardi (1971),
who quotes most of the texts in their original as well as translated version,
and provides an exceptionally detailed critical apparatus. I have included
some others not found in Nardi: for instance, Chariton's Callirhoe (1995),
an adventure novel which includes an extremely rare account of a woman
wrestling with her conscience over whether or not to have an abortion [1st
century A.D.].
Antiquity has other advantages. Preceding the triumph of Christianity,

it is the period of history that was most open-minded about abortion. For
both Plato and Aristotle, in their respective utopias, The Repuiblic and Po-
litics, abortion was an instrument of the state's eugenic policy. The vast
majority of Greek and Roman physicians envisaged therapeutic abortion,
a subject which was later considered taboo to a large extent by moralists
and theologians. Furthermore, abortion as such was not illegal under Ro-
man law. The demographic effect of abortion might thus be expected to
be greatest during antiquity.
Finally, the present-day studies on the subject generally agree that

abortion contributed to reducing the size of the wealthy families under the
Roman Empire (see for instance Bardet and Dupaquier, 1997, p. 127;
McLaren, 1990, p. 73; Noonan, 1970, p. 7; for a qualified view, see Gou-
revitch, 1984, p. 214-6). If we find here little evidence to support this
widely accepted assertion, then the demographic impact of abortion during
other periods must be even more dubious.
The sample consists mostly of self-induced abortions (103 references
out of 120), but, insofar as they are important for illustrating how doctrines
evolved, I have included references to abortions caused purposely or ac-
cidentally by a third party. The sample can be broken down as follows:
Cuiltutral origini. There are 38 references from Greek or Hellenistic
pagan authors, 45 from Latin pagan authors, 7 are of Jewish origin and
30 Christian.
Type of solur-ce. 39 references come from religious texts, 12 from
legal and 34 from medical or scientific works, the remainder being of a
literary, moral or philosophical nature. The three major categories are re-
latively homogenous and the references often give variations on a same
theme: assimilation of abortion to murder (religious), assertion of paternal
rights (legal), and justification of therapeutic abortion (medical).
This interpretation of the stand taken by physicians (and, by in-
ference, by pharmacologists) may be contestable. In the Hippocratic ti^ea-
tises Oii Womien's Diseases and Oni the Naturi-e of Womeni, there are many
recipes that have sometimes been interpreted (for instance by Riddle, 1993)
as being abortifacients, but which are in fact clearly designated as remedies
to induce menstruation, to extract a dead fretus or placenta, or to accelerate
a difficult labour. On several occasions, the author notes disapprovingly
that physicians are called upon to treat women who have inflicted injury
on themselves with acrid pessaries or sharp instruments (Hippocrates, Vol.
VIII, 1962, pp. 141 and 151). Finally, two works in the Hippocratic Col-
lection, On the Natture of the Child and Oni Fleshes, in which the authors
describe embryos they have examined (according to them, at six and seven
days of gestation respectively), target the prostitutes who did away with
them (Hippocrates, Vol. XI, 1970, p. 55; Hippocrates, Vol. VIII, 1962, p.
611).
In his treatise on simples, Galen puts abortifacients on a level with

aphrodisiacs and drugs taken to induce dreams or prevent an adversary
from speaking out in court. Yet while stating that they are ineffective or
dangerous (Nardi, 1971, pp. 244-6), he nonetheless supplies a number of
recipes. Perhaps he follows the same logic as Soranus, the great Greek
gynecologist of the 2nd century A.D., who is against the principle of abor-
tion but proposes a series of mild procedures for cases where the mother's
immaturity or a foetal malformation make it necessary to intervene (So-
ranos, 1988, p. 59-65). Finally, Dioscorides, who enumerates with no com-
mentary whatsoever all the virtues attributed to the mnateria mnedica,
including 18 substances that spoil the foetus and 6 that expel it, was pro-
bably addressing specialists for whom therapeutic abortion was an option
(Gunther, 1956). It is a fact that many versions of the Hippocratic Oath
enjoined from procuring an abortion, to which the medical ethics of an-
tiquity was generally opposed.
Marital status. 31 out of 120 references (one-quarter) concern mar-

ried couples, 7 unmarried girls, 1 both these categories together, 6 refer
to cases of adultery, 4 to widows, 6 to prostitutes, 3 to slaves, and 1 to
royal concubines. In 61 references, there is no allusion made to the marital
status of the potential abortee: this is the case of the medical and phar-
macological texts that prescribe remedies or list the properties of substan-
ces, and it seems likely that they apply principally to therapeutic abortions
of married women. On the other hand, most of the references that have
to do with married couples are normative texts of the kind "Christians do
not abort" or, in the Hippocratic Oath, "I shall not administer abortive
pessaries", which confirm the prevailing opposition to the practice. The
cases of abortion self-induced by a married woman are exceptional: abor-
tion by battery, or to spite the husband by depriving him of an heir. Finally,
a number of authors suggest that abortion was normal for prostitutes or
slaves.
Duration of gestation. The distinction between early abortion and

late abortion has several phrasings: before or after 40 days gestation, before
or after animation or ensoulment, before or after the child is formed or
alive. In 81 texts, no distinction is made, and in 16 there is one. 8 texts
describe an early abortion, as in the famous case of the danseuse in Hip-
pocrates' On the Nature of the Child, who brought down 'a seed of six
days' by jumping in the air and smacking her buttocks with her heels. In
the parallel treatise On Fleshes, seven-day foetuses aborted by prostitutes
120 E. VAN DE WALLE
are said to be fully formed, a fact now known to be impossible; these

have been classed among the 18 late abortions. In fact, the distinction be-
tween 'formed' and 'unformed' is of no great importance until the 4th cen-
tury, when authors such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome stress the different
degrees of gravity of the two types of crime. This distinction was to survive
for a long time in canon law and civil jurisprudence.
The mneans. In 51 cases, no method of abortion is mentioned, and

in 12 cases more than one are given by the author; Soranos, for instance,
mentions potions, sitzbaths and pessaries. The remaining cases are distri-
buted as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1.- METHODS OF ABORTION QUOTED IN ANTIQUITY
Violence and battery 7

Strenuous movements 2
Sharp instrument 4
Drug or 'medick' 43
of which:
Potions 13
Plaster 1
Pessar-y 4
Sitzbath 1
Not specified 24
Drugs are clearly the most popular method. However, the terms most
frequently used in Greek, pharmakon or pharmnakeia, are ambiguous: they
often have the meaning of charms or magic, and sometimes of poison. In
the Greek translations of the Old and New Testaments, these terms are
always used in the sense of magic, and some Christians, like Tatian, are
on principle opposed to all drugs (Amundsen, 1996, pp. 158-74). In his
Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates say that midwives can bring about an early
abortion, when they consider it necessary, by "pharmacy and incantations"
(Nardi, 1971, pp. 56-8). The Latin terms venenum and maleficiumn are just
as ambiguous.
The notivation . In 58 cases, no motive is mentioned, and in 7
cases the abortion was an accident (for instance, the woman had been the
unwilling victim of a fight between men). The remaining cases can be
classed grosso modo according to social, medical, aesthetic and economic
indications (Table 2).
There are strikingly few cases where parents mention the economic
burden of having a large family or a too recent previous birth. We are
close to an economic motivation when St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, says
that rich families use abortion to avoid dividing their wealth between heirs
(Nardi, 1971, p. 531), and when St. Zeno, bishop of Verona, or St. John
Chrysostom allude to greed as a motive (ibid, pp. 509 and 533); all these
are 4th-century references. In an earlier period, Tertulian advised men who
feared the "importunity of children" not to re-marry, rather than resort to
abortion (ibid., pp. 406-12).
TABLE 2.- THE MOTIVES FOR ABORTING IN ANTIQUITY
Social indications 23
To avoid an illegitimate, adulterine or incestuous birth 10
To avoid having a child who woulcl be a slave or victim of
an oppressive regime 4
Problems of succession, competition between heirs
Hostility toward the husband or jealousy 5
Remarriage of a pregnant woman
Aesthetic indicatiosS 13
To preserve one's beauty 8
Prostitutioni 5
Medical inldicationis 8
Econoooic inldicationis 5
Miscellanieouts 6
Eugenic interest of the State 4
Heretic riite
It is true that prostitutes also had an obvious financial interest in

ending a pregnancy, but they have been classed here under 'aesthetic' mo-
tives. Soranos approves the physicians who refuse abortions sought for
reasons of beauty; Moschion (or Muscio), in his 6th-century adaptation of
this text, substitutes a condemnation of abortions sought for mercenary
reasons (Nardi, 1971, p. 588). The Love Epistles of Aristaieuietits, a 4th-
century Hellenistic work translated into French by Cyre Foucault in 1597,
recounts: "She did not want to remain pregnant, lest she earn a lower price
from her lovers if she had children, having lost prematurely the flower of
her beauty" (Anon., 1971, p. 78). In the Damigeron-Evax lapidary, it is
stated that the stone oritis: "has very great virtues. Kings attach one to
their concubines when they share their couch so that a pregnancy will not
deprive them of their beauty and so that they will not bear sons" (Halleux
and Schamp, 1985, p. 254). There is a dual purpose: aesthetic and dynastic.
Approval or disapproval. In 75 of the 120 references, there is
virtually unreserved reprobation of abortion: this is the standpoint of mo-
ralists and theologians. In 11 cases, the author (generally a physician) ap-
proves of abortion only when the mother's life or health is at risk, or
warns against the dangers of abortifacients. In 16 cases, a pharmacologist
or a naturalist gives a recipe or describes the properties of a substance
without proffering any judgement. In 17 cases, the author seems to indicate
that abortion is a normal procedure but without approving it. When the
author opposes the prevailing mores, he is classed among the adversaries.
Noonan (1970, p. 6) states that "abortion is taken for granted" by contem-
porary pagans such as Plautus (Tralcatleiitas, 1.2.99), Ovid (De Amloribias,
1.2.13), Juvenal (Satira, 2.6) and Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, 12.1). In
Plautus, the reference is to a prostitute (in eretrix). In all the other quota-
tions, the author admits that abortion is commonplace, but does not hide
122 E. VAN DE WALLE
his disapproval of the practice. Aulus Gellius, for instance, terms "folly"
the behaviour of so many young women who, simply to avoid stomach-
stretching, resort to the treacherous means of abortion. In The Walnut-Tree,
which is probably the most openly pronatalist statement in the whole of
antiquity, Ovid says: "Now she that would seem beautiful harms her womb,
and rare is she who would be a parent" (Ovid, 1969). We can add here
the letter by Seneca the Younger in which he congratulates his mother for
never having destroyed in her breast the expectancy of children, and, in
the following sentence, for never having painted her face (Seneca, 1932,
pp. 470-2).
Noonan has noted that such quotations contain the strongest argument
in favour of the diffusion of abortion, since according to contemporary
witnesses it prevailed among married couples. It is noteworthy, however,
that all these quotations indict women's vanity, and perhaps there is some-
thing of a misogynous cliche here. It is difficult to believe that, to protect
their beauty, Roman matrons would have undergone several times a year,
for thirty childbearing years, an unreliable and dangerous procedure that
could be detrimental to their health and consequently to their beauty. Plu-
tarch, writing on the means of preserving health, observes that serial abor-
tions are damaging to the health of women of easy virtue (Nardi, 1971,
p. 287). Abortion is not an effective method of birth control, but a stand-by
that complements contraception. Of the authors cited above, only Juvenal
mentions contraception together with abortion (ibid, pp. 316-9).
For what reason would the Christian authors have spoken out so ve-
hemently against abortion if it were nothing but a rare deviation, limited
to marginal population groups? Had it been restricted to cases of imperial
incest - like that of Julia, Domitian's niece and mistress, who aroused the
indignation of Juvenal, Suetonius and Pliny the Younger - or to prostitu-
tion, the Church Fathers would barely have stirred. But they associate it
with fornication and adultery that epitomize sexual sin; and indeed, the
first canonical condemnations, starting with the Council of Ancyra in 314,
are limited to adultery.
In conclusion, this body of material, which albeit imperfect is all we

have for the period, does not allow us to infer that abortion was a real
option for couples living in antiquity, nor that it had any notable impact
on fertility in any social class.
III. - The Middle Ages and modern times
For later periods, the conclusions I propose will be provisional, based

on a limited number of references. The nature, contents and tone of the
quotations from the Middle Ages for a long time show little change. Trans-
lations of the works of the great philosophers-physicians of Islam, in par-
ticular Avicenna's Canon of Medicine in the 12th century, reintroduce
Soranus's views on the justification of therapeutic abortion. During the

same period, a work from the School of Salerno, the Practica Brevis of
Platearius, introduces an additional justification for abortion: to save the
mother's health when pregnancies occur too close together:
"It must be noted that all the things that effectively stimulate the menstrual
flow also extract the afterbirth and the dead foetus and brother toad, as
the Salernitans call it. And it must be noted also that the women of Salerno
work toward killing the above-said toad in the early days of conception
and mostly when it is due to come alive, by drinking the juice of celery
and leeks" (Hunt, 1994, p. 277-8)
The foetus, which steals the breast milk from its brother's mouth, is
likened to a toad, a malevolent parasite that should rightfully be extermi-
nated. It is questionable, however, whether 'the juice of celery and leeks'
actually would achieve this object.
On the Liber- ad Almnansor-eni by another great philosopher-physician

of Islam, Rhazes, Jacquart and Thomasset observe that he ends his list of
abortifacients by referring to the chapter on remedies that stimulate mens-
truation:
"One must therefore add to the information on the means of procuring an
abortion that was in circulation in the Middle Ages the innumerable
methods which, under the pretext that they acted as a stimulant on a slug-
gish menstrual flow, could be openly divulged." (Jacquart and Thomasset,
1988, p. 92)
The same substances may be prescribed to induce abortion or mens-

truation, but it is the latter function that is deemed essential and that jus-
tifies the gathering and selling of emmenagogues (van de Walle, 1997).
The humoral theory that was dominant in the West since Hippocrates sug-
gested that, unless impurities were regularly eliminated from the body,
blood would accumulate and cause suffocation of the matrix and a multi-
tude of diseases, each one more fearful than the rest. Moreover, in funda-
mentally pronatalist societies, the return of menses means the possibility
of another birth. When the authors warned pregnant women against the
use of menstrual stimulants, they were not slyly communicating villainous
information, but suggesting the need for caution in the management of a
successful pregnancy.
The judicial sources The legal texts, in accordance with later Roman
law, condemn abortion by discriminating be-
tween before or after animation or quickening for the severity of the pe-
nalty. In the Late Middle Ages, it is laid down in the statutes of professions
such as apothecaries and midwives that selling or administering abortifa-
cients is a punishable offense. A new and important source of material
becomes available during that period: the transcripts of trials and other
court archives. The historians have so far made only slight inroads into
this vast store of information, but the number of monographs is increasing
and it is becoming possible to have a clearer idea of the frequency of
124 E. VAN DE WALLE
abortion and the population concerned. The abortion trials concern either
abortionists - often midwives or physicians - or prostitutes or unmarried
girls, generally maids who have been seduced by their master. Trials for
abortion are relatively rare; much more so, in any case, than those for
infanticide. Among letters of remission in France during the Middle Ages,
Laurent (1989) finds many more cases of infanticide than of abortion. In
Nurenberg, Leibrock-Plehn (1993, p. 85) counts 72 infanticides for the en-
tire 16th century, and only 10 sentences for attempted abortion (and one
for successful abortion) between 1510 and 1693. Stuckenbrock (1993) pro-
vides a series of figures on the relative frequency of abortion and infan-
ticide trials in several German states during the 17th century: in
Schleswig-Holstein, for instance, there were about 350 infanticides versus
20 trials for attempted abortion between 1700 and 1810 (ibid, p. 97).
Two comments have been made on the representativeness of this ma-

terial. The first concerns the under-estimation of abortion. If there are many
more trials for infanticide than for abortion, it is because the principal
victim of the latter crime is usually a willing one, and she is aided and
abetted by accomplices who buy the required products under one pretext
or another and who discreetly bury the foetus. It is often impossible to
prove an abortion has been performed. In the case of infanticide, on the
other hand, the scenario is often the following one: a girl is seduced and
abandoned by her lover, or rejected by her parents or employer; the pre-
gnancy becomes increasingly difficult to hide, and when a baby's corpse
is found, she is denounced by public rumour. Also, the authorities devote
more energy to pursuing child-killers than aborters, as attested by the fa-
mous Edict of Henry II in 1556 punishing the concealment of a pregnancy
- an act considered to be a prelude to infanticide - that makes no mention of
abortion. According to some scholars such as Stuckenbrock (1993, p. 97),
abortions may, therefore, have been in fact more frequent than infanticides.
It is not certain, however, that abortion was so widespread after all.
The trials are mostly for 'attempted abortion', and in the vast majority of
cases the abortion had not succeeded. An accomplice tried to buy some
savin from an apothecary, a girl drank a potion, a midwife denounced a
suspicious request - and the wheels of justice started to turn; but the ac-
cused ends up delivering a live birth. The same situation is depicted by
the English and American monographs (Quaife, 1979; Thompson, 1986)
and by the archives of the London Court of Arches analysed by Stone
(1995). Furthermore, the judicial system is sometimes inclined towards
exaggeration: concerning the case of the infamous Voisin, who under tor-
ture owned up to thousands of abortions, it has been observed (by Harley,
1990, p. 7) that "no body was ever produced as evidence".
The other argument concerning the possible under-statement of abor-
tion in the judicial archives has to do with married couples. For McLaren
(1984), taking substances to provoke an early abortion is essentially a deed
of married women, who have the protection of their family and the liberty
to explain by a miscarriage the fact that they are no longer pregnant. Unlike
the wench who hangs back from taking a decision, in the hope of marrying
her seducer, the married woman can act as soon as she realizes she is
pregnant. McLaren underlines the abundance of recipes and abortifacients
which are widely available because they are also taken to induce mens-
truation. Plants and herbs reputed to be emmenagogues abound in the coun-
tryside. In summer, within a few hundred yards of her home, any woman
can pick five or six plants with a (probably overrated) reputation as abor-
tifacients: groundsel and shepherd purse still grow on the side of the road,
and pennyroyal or mugwort can be found within skipping distance. The
more dangerous plants, such as rue, savin or colocynth, are cultivated in
gardens.
The argument cannot be rejected out of hand, but it is entirely spe-

culative, and depends on the effectiveness of these old-wives' remedies.
Abortion trials implicated maidens, servants, prostitutes, nuns but very ra-
rely married women. Yet abortifacients were most often purchased from
professionals, and not picked in the wild at the time of need. Denunciation
by a midwife or apothecary, who were required by their statutes to report
any suspicious behaviour, was often what opened the case. Why would
they have omitted to report married women?
The literary sources The fictional or satirical literature, which ex-

plores behaviours and motivations and descri-
bes a context purported to be realistic, also puts abortion in an almost
exclusively extra-marital setting. The allusions are few and far between in
the Middle Ages. In Adgar's Gracial, a latter 12th-century Anglo-Norman
poem devoted to miracles due to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, an
abbess becomes pregnant and "wisely" decides to keep the fruit:
"Since whoever knowingly tampers
with a natural conception
misbehaves towards God beyond measure.
It is a great sin to tamper with it;
a heinous crime, to kill the conception." (Adgar, 1982, p. 320)
About the same period, abortion is evoked in Fougeres' Livre des
nmanieries (1979, p. 95), then in the 14th century in another miracle: "About
the pregnant girl who struck her womb with a knife" (Savoie, 1933). The
heroine of one of the Decameron tales [ca. 1350] fails in her efforts to
evacuate the fruit of her womb (Boccaccio, 1976, p. 374), while in a tale
by Cinzio [1565] an unmarried woman turns down this option suggested
by her maid (Motte-Gillet, 1993, p. 985). Abortion is hinted at in some
of the great didactic poems of the 15th century, from Eustache Deschamps's
Fiction dit Lion [1404] (1893, p. 306) to Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools
[1494] (1997, p. 321).
In modern times, too, abortion concerns mostly unmarried girls and,

once again, it is less frequent than child abandonment. The literature tends
to portray high-society personages, but although married ladies have lovers,
abortion is rarely mentioned in the context of adultery. An exception is
126 E. VAN DE WALLE
Bussy-Rabutin's L'Histoire anmoureuise des Galiles [1665], in which a "fa-

med physician" "got out of a delicate situation" the Duke of Nemours'
mistress, Madame de Chatillon, by giving her emetics (Bergues et al., 1960,
p. 155). Some references to married women and their motives can be found.
Tallemant des Reaux relates that Madame de Montbazon, once she had
had "children enough", boasted that she had broken the neck of a child
by cantering through Paris in a carriage (Bergues et al., 1960, p. 161). In
one of his epigrams, the English dramatist Ben Jonson [1616] discusses
the motives of a lady of the court who resorts to her apothecary's drugs
to terminate an unwanted pregnancy:
"Is it the paine affrights? That's soone forgot.
Or your complexions losse? You have a pot,
That can restore that. Will it hurt your feature?
To make amends, yo'are thought a wholesome creature.
What should the cause be? Oh, you live at court:
And there's both losse of time, and losse of sport
In a great belly... (Ben Jonson, 1963, p. 26)
In Conjugal Lewdness, a moralizing work, Daniel Defoe [1727] des-

cribes a heroine who has a pathological fear of the travails of delivery.
After desperately trying to avoid becoming pregnant, she accepts the idea
of an abortion before quickening but does not succeed.
Abortion is limited in most cases to extra-marital relations. It is not,
however, the solution preferred in the libertine literature by characters
wishing to avoid "the fateful swelling". It appears relatively rarely and
certainly not as an option open to all women. In the voluminous Enifer de
la Bibliotheque niationale [Hell of the French National Library] published
by Fayard, a series of texts in which an attempt is made to temper the
pornography with an educational function, speak freely of contraception
but either avoid mentioning abortion or denounce it. L'e'cole des filles ou
la philosophie des damtes [1655], which contains a fully reasoned discus-
sion of contemporary contraception, just alludes to abortion: "I have re-
medies for such cases which will not be lacking". But the recommended
solution is to abandon the babe:
"A friend advises and, if need be, assists you, you go away for a month
or six weeks, and even if keen eyes are watching, it takes but a day or
two to be unburdened. And then you're as happy as a lark: the babe's
entrusted to a wet nurse, and all that at the expense of the man who made
it" (Anon., 1988, pp. 259-60).
This is precisely the solution adopted by one of the heroines in Fu-
retiere's Le romtan bourgeois [1666] (1968).
A work which has all the features of a sex education manual, Le
triomphe des religieuses ou les nonies babillardes [1748], includes a scene
in which two lovers, a monk and a nun, reject the solution of abortion:
Brother C6me: "You are too dear to me to risk exposing your days to the
hazardous and doubtful success of the effect produced [by some herbs].
In destroying the foetus, simples can also cause the mother to die, or at
least leave in their wake dire sequels: terrible ills or the remorse at having
killed an unfortunate little creature that was conceived in love and des-
troyed by cruel honour" (Anon., 1988, p. 222)
It is true that in Le portier des chartreux [1741] a monk gives a
mysterious potion to the nun he has impregnated. But the libertine literature
never suggested, at least until Sade, that abortion was harmless and within
easy reach of the reader. With Sade [1795], abortion is indeed presented
as an easy method, and as a legitimate right: "there is on earth no right
more certain than a mother's right over her children" (Sade, 1993, p. 82).
Beneath his usual zest, the description that emerges in Casanova

(1993, Vol. II, pp. 153-98) is perhaps the most realistic portrayal of an
abortion situation in the mid-18th century. A lady friend asks him to help
her abort. His reaction is categorical: it is impossible to kill the child wi-
thout endangering the mother's life, and he flatly refuses. He puts his friend
on a soft regimen of blood letting and purges, no doubt to weaken her,
and encourages her to dance. And he makes inquiries: he visits a midwife
who treats prostitutes, but refuses her offer as being too risky, and is then
denounced by her to the police; he reads learned works: Paracelse and
Boerhaave, from whom he borrows the formula of a saffron pessary - but
replaces the saffron by innocuous substances. In the end, he helps the young
woman find a safe haven to have the baby, and then to rid herself of it.
Casanova, the quintessential libertine, rejects abortion which he considers
too dangerous.
If I focus on the views of libertine authors, it is because they would

appear to hold some authority in a field where hearsay and prejudice are
rife. Casanova is a specialist in seduction; L'ecole des filles and Le triom-
phe des religieuses are resolutely educational in tone, despite their scan-
dalous nature. Such sources are less likely to overstate the dangers of
abortion than an obstetrician like Mauquest de la Motte when he relates
the death of a "denatured girl" who tried to abort by taking colocynth
after rue and savin had failed (Gelis, 1989, p. 75). And they are more
likely to be representative of common practice than the description of a
court scandal in 1660 when an abortion claimed one of the Queen of
France's maidens of honour (Bergues et al., 1960, pp. 149-50).
True enough, quotations presenting abortion as a simple, risk-free pro-
cedure do exist. In Brantome's Les dames galantes [late 16th century] a
girl "encountered a skilled apothecary who, having given her a draught
made her fruit escape, that was already six months old, piece by piece
and part by part, so easily that even though she was pursuing her normal
course of business, she felt neither pain nor soreness" (Bergues et al., 1960,
p. 144). Such details are so improbable that the evidence can be dismissed.
This is not the case for the letter written by Lady Caroline Fox in 1747
to her husband, in which she rejoices at having painlessly rid herself of
an early pregnancy by taking "a great deal of physic" (McLaren, 1984, p.
94). It is true that one out of four pregnancies known to the mother ends
spontaneously, and a woman could believe in good faith she had caused
what was nothing but a natural outcome. Lady Fox wished to recover her
128 E. VAN DE WALLE
health after a too-recent birth, and indeed, birth spacing was a plausible
motive for abortion in the aristocracy, where babies had wet nurses. The
means to achieve that goal were, however, not very effective. In these con-
ditions, one can understand that herbal teas, sitzbaths, blood letting and
strenuous exercice kept their reputation as abortifacients. But to conclude
therefrom that domestic abortions contributed to fertility regulation is a
step I am not willing to take. Did some of the potions taken to provoke
menstruation have the desired effect in case of pregnancy? It is not im-
possible, but the lack of data imposes scepticism. In any case, the price
of failure was not exorbitant, given that the aim of abortion was not to
limit family size but only to space pregnancies. Married couples had no
need to resort to the drastic methods (perforating instruments, violent poi-
sons) sometimes chanced by desperate unmarried girls.
* *
Having completed this examination of the~ very rudimentary sources

that are available, I can find no compelling reason to consider that abortion
was, prior to the 19th century, anything other than an unreliable, dangerous
and rare practice, which had no demographic impact. The less dangerous
methods were probably ineffective, while the drastic measures were so ris-
ky that they were reserved for prostitutes or desperate wenches who had
been seduced and abandoned.
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Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Towards a Demographic History of Abortion
Prior to the 19th century, the sources for the study of abortion in the west are not sta-
tistical but literary, medical, religious and legal, and give little indication of its demogra-
phic weight. It is, however, possible to study the frequency of the contexts in which
abortion is mentioned: for example, by marital status of the mother, type of motivation, ap-
proval or disapproval of the author of the quotation. probable effectiveness of the methods
used. The frequency of references to abortion can also be compared with those regarding al-
teriiative practices such as infanticide. Our examination of the very crude sources that are
available, indicates that there is no compelling reason to conclude that abortion was in the
past anything else than an unreliable, dangerous and rare practice, and with no demographic
impact. The less dangerous methods were probably ineffective, while the drastic measures
were only used by desperate unmarried girls and prostitutes.
Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Pour une histoire demographique de l'avortement
Les sources sur l'avortement en Occident avant le XIXe siecle ne relevent pas de la
statistique. Litteraires, medicales, religieuses ou legales, elles revelent peu sur son poids
demographique. On peut toutefois faire une etude de frequence des contextes dans lesquel
l'avortement est mentionne : par exemple, par etat matrimonial de la mere, type de motiva-
tion, approbation ou d6sapprobation de l'auteur de la citation, efficacite probable des tech-
niques utilis6es. On peut aussi comparer la frequence des r6f6rences a l'avortement, a celles
portant sur des procedures rivales comme l' infanticide. Au terme de cet examen des sources
tres rudimentaires dont on dispose, il n'y a pas de raison determinante de penser que l'avor-
tement etait jadis autre chose qu'une procedure incertaine, dangereuse et rare, sans poids
demographique. Les procedures douces etaient probablement inefficaces; les mesuies des-
esper6es 6taient r6servees aux filles abandonnees et aux prostituees.
Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Por una historia demografica del aborto
Las fuentes sobre el aborto en Occidente antes del siglo XIX no son estadisticas. Li-
terarias, m6dicas, religiosas o legales, estas fuentes revelan poco sobre el peso demografico
del fen6meno. No obstante, permiten realizar un estudio de frecuencia de los contextos en
los que se menciona el aborto: por ejemplo, estado civil de la madre, motivaci6n, aproba-
ci6n o desaprobaci6n del autor de la citaci6n o eficacia probable de las tecnicas utilizadas.
Tambi6n permiten comparar la frecuencia de referencias al aborto con la frecuencia de ref-
erencias a procedimientos rivales como el infanticidio. La conclusi6n de la revisi6n de estas
fuentes rudimentarias es que no existen razones para creer que el aborto fuera en el pasado
un procedimiento inseguro, peligroso o raro, sin peso demografico. Los procedimientos sua-
ves eran probablemente poco eficaces; las medidas desesperadas se reservaban a las j6venes
abandonadas y a las prostitutas.
Etienne VAN DE WALLE, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 244 Mc Neil Building,
Philadelphia PH 19104-6298 - tel. 215 898 7831, fax 215 898 2124, etienne@pop.upenn.edu

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Towards a Demographic History of Abortion

Author(s): Etienne van de Walle

Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

Etienne Van de WALLE*

Mention demography, and numbers and ratios automatically spring

The present article takes a minimalist stand. I propose to examine

: Population Studies Ceniter, University of Penniisylvaniia.

Population: An English Selection, 11, 1999, 115-132

historical populations. Following Louis Henry, I define natural fertility as

I. - Some principles for interpreting the evidence

The available material is absolutely not representative of the whole

The body of references to abortion can itself serve for a frequency

Another caveat: beware the 'witnesses for the prosecution'. Drama-

Finally, the current state of knowledge and technology should always

II. - The sources and contexts in antiquity

Soine necessary distinctions To evaluate the demographic impact of

pretations - whether minimalist like mine or maximalist - are based on the

Antiquity has other advantages. Preceding the triumph of Christianity,

Finally, the present-day studies on the subject generally agree that

In his treatise on simples, Galen puts abortifacients on a level with

Marital status. 31 out of 120 references (one-quarter) concern mar-

Duration of gestation. The distinction between early abortion and

are said to be fully formed, a fact now known to be impossible; these

The mneans. In 51 cases, no method of abortion is mentioned, and

TABLE 1.- METHODS OF ABORTION QUOTED IN ANTIQUITY

Violence and battery 7

TABLE 2.- THE MOTIVES FOR ABORTING IN ANTIQUITY

It is true that prostitutes also had an obvious financial interest in

In conclusion, this body of material, which albeit imperfect is all we

III. - The Middle Ages and modern times

For later periods, the conclusions I propose will be provisional, based

Soranus's views on the justification of therapeutic abortion. During the

On the Liber- ad Almnansor-eni by another great philosopher-physician

The same substances may be prescribed to induce abortion or mens-

Two comments have been made on the representativeness of this ma-

The argument cannot be rejected out of hand, but it is entirely spe-

The literary sources The fictional or satirical literature, which ex-

In modern times, too, abortion concerns mostly unmarried girls and,

Bussy-Rabutin's L'Histoire anmoureuise des Galiles [1665], in which a "fa-

In Conjugal Lewdness, a moralizing work, Daniel Defoe [1727] des-

Beneath his usual zest, the description that emerges in Casanova

If I focus on the views of libertine authors, it is because they would

Having completed this examination of the~ very rudimentary sources

ADGAR, (1982), Le Gi-acial, published by Pierre Kunstmnann, University of Ottowa Editions.

DEFOE Daniel, (1727), Conijutgal Lewdness, or Matrimi10onial Wlhoredoini. A Treatise conicerninig

STUCKENBROCK Karin, (1993), <<Das Zeitalter der Aufklarung, Kindsmord, Fruchtabtreibung

Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Towards a Demographic History of Abortion

Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Pour une histoire demographique de l'avortement

Van de WALLE (Etienne).- Por una historia demografica del aborto

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