PHLB09H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: American Medical Association, Hippocratic Oath, English Law
Document Summary
Vaughn views on abortion whether by the church, state or citizenry varied dramatically through time across cultures. Abortions in the ancient world were common and there were no shortages of methods for effecting them. Some writers of the time condemned the practice and some recommended it let there be a law that no deformed child shall live, and if couples have children in excess, let abortion procured before life sense have begun -aristotle. Hippocratic oath proscribed the use of abortifacients substances or devices for inducing abortions, a prohibition respected by many physicians but ignored by others. Hebrew and christian scriptures do not denounce abortion and do not suffuse that the fetus is a person. Christians generally condemned abortion though their ideas about personhood of the fetus have changed though the centuries. In english common law, abortion was considered a crime only if performed after quickening when mother detects fetal movement.
