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Cargando... Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissancepor John M. Riddle
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. 3   Fullmoonblue | Mar 26, 2009 |  sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
"John Riddle uncovers the obscure history of contraception and abortifacients from ancient Egypt to the seventeenth century with forays into Victorian England--a topic that until now has evaded the pens of able historians." "Riddle's thesis is, quite simply, that the ancient world did indeed possess effective (and safe) contraceptives and abortifacients. The author maintains that this rich body of knowledge about fertility control--widely held in the ancient world--was gradually lost over the course of the Middle Ages, becoming nearly extinct by the early modern period. The reasons for this, he suggests, stemmed from changes in the organization of medicine. As university medical training became increasingly important, physicians' ties with folk traditions were broken. The study of birth control methods was just not part of the curriculum."
"In an especially telling passage, Riddle reveals how Renaissance humanists were ill equipped to provide accurate translations of ancient texts concerning abortifacients due to their limited experience with women's ailments. Much of the knowledge about contraception belonged to an oral culture--a distinctively female-centered culture. From ancient times until the seventeenth century women held a monopoly on birthing and the treatment of related matters information passed from midwife to mother, from mother to daughter. Riddle reflects on the difficulty of finding traces of oral culture and the fact that the little existing evidence is drawn from male writers who knew that culture only from a distance. Nevertheless, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, the author pieces together the clues and evaluates the scientific merit of these ancient remedies in language that is easily understood by the general reader. His findings will be useful to anyone interested in learning whether it was possible for premodern people to regulate their reproduction without resorting to the extremities of dangerous surgical abortions, the killing of infants, or the denial of biological urges."--Jacket. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)613.9Technology Medicine and health Personal health and safety Birth control, reproductive technology, sex hygiene, sexual techniquesClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (4.2)
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pp 20-21: As most of the Greek and Latin church fathers used Jewish scholars' interpretations of the Septuagint when it came to questions about souls and 'when life begins' (see Exodus 21:22), many of them (including St Augustine) made a distinction between 'formed' and 'unformed' fetuses and agreed that it should not be considered homicide or punishable as such if an 'unformed' fetus were intentionally aborted. Gregory of Nissa agreed too, writing that unformed embryos could not even be considered human. (See Gregory's Adversus Macedonianos.)
p 23: Riddle goes back to the Jewish tradition, pointing out that Hebrew religious law upheld the belief that there's a 30-40 day gap between conception and 'quickening', so that a woman couldn't even be rightly considered pregnant during the first 40 days.
Of course, as Riddle explains later, the key concern for most of these church fathers, scholars et cetera, and in Greek and Roman law, was *not* to make stands on abortion and contraception in terms of their religious morality or immorality (or in terms of women at all) but rather to ensure the rights of the fathers/husbands to their heirs. Riddle cites an oration by the Greek parodist Sopater, as well as that well-known Roman, Cicero. He then begins to explore where and when and how the Church's views on abortion began to change, such as illustrated in the ruling of the Roman judge Septimus Severus (AD/CE 193-211) that a woman accused of aborting her estranged husband's child should be punished by exile "for it would appear shameful that she could with impunity deprive her husband of children" (Riddle 63). Even here, Riddle notes, it was still not a question of life being sacred or of protecting the rights of the unborn, but rather of protecting the right of the father.
The church was also concerned with outlawing contraceptives *not* initially because they ended a pregnancy but, like the Romans, because the potions, herbs and ointments used to do so were considered 'witchcraft'. Thus you find plenty of cases against people accused of supplying an herbal/chemical means of abortion (especially if the woman died as a result of an overdose or poisoning or such) but few charges against those who used nonchemical means.
However, by the tail end of the 4th century AD/CE, Roman physicians were beginning to stipulate when abortion was or wasn't religiously (not legally, but expressly religiously) 'fas' or right. The physician Theodorus Priscianus, whose works on gynecology were still being copied and cited in the Middle Ages, stated for instance that it was not 'fas' to abort a fetus...unless the woman was too young or had too small a womb -- an early 'health of the mother' concession. So here we have a well-regarded source on women's health, still popular in the Middle Ages, in which the author provides not only information about how to have an abortion, "but, accompanying it, a moral justification: to save lives" (Riddle 92).
Riddle also finds, in the Middle Ages, numerous examples of church/secular disagreement about whether abortion was right or wrong, acceptable or a crime. Germanic, Allemanian, Bavarian and Ostrogoth law codes began to set specific punishments, from fines to lashes, for women found guilty of abortion or contraception use (109-10). Here too the Catholic church began narrowing down its positions on when the fetus gets a soul and becomes a protected quantity; Riddle cites bishop Caesarius of Arles, Columban, and Martin of Braga on things like the punishment/penance assigned for the sin of homicide by means of witchcraft (again, usually herbs). But even then the punishments were lesser if the abortion happened during the first 40 days. Apparently it was only in the 11th and 12th centuries, according to Riddle, as the church began really exerting its influence over western Europe politically, that the church started to really sharpen its stance. The message was hardly a unified one though; even the musician and abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote on which herbs were best to 'regulate' a menstrual cycle, and which plants could be used to induce a miscarriage.
To be continued... (