Spirit of Abortion found in Ancient Religions

[pammalamma]

This article states something that I noticed long ago:  that ancient religious infanticide (which we find repugnant) isn't really all that different, in spirit, from abortion.  They are both a way of giving up something that does have value in the belief that the abortive/sacrificing parent may have a chance at a more comfortable, prosperous future

Comments

[lavendersparkle]

I don't think that that article is very useful. In cultures which practise sacrifice, people actively seek the things they sacrifice and the thing they sacrifice has value to them.

Abortion generally occurs as a way of getting rid of foetus whose parents didn't intend to conceive him or who does not fulfil something they find desirable (gender/disability). In that way it's more like the practice of infanticide. I've chatted to a friend of mine who's an archaeologist of late Roman skeletons. You don't find many infant skeletons partly because they decompose but partly because people didn't bother to bury them in burial grounds. Before the age of about 5 an infant wasn't viewed as fully a person, so they're bodies were disposed of as other rubbish. Their fathers could also decide to kill them for family planning or if they were female or disabled.