Abortion has been practiced for at least 3,600 years, and likely much longer. The earliest written record dates to roughly 1600 BCE in ancient Egypt, but herbal and physical methods almost certainly predate any surviving text. Across every major civilization, from ancient Greece and Rome through medieval Europe and into the modern era, people have sought ways to end pregnancies.
The Earliest Written Records
The oldest known documentation of abortion appears in the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text from around 1600 BCE. It describes a method by which “the woman empties out the conceived in the first, second or third time period,” using herbal drinks, vaginal douches, and vaginal suppositories. This wasn’t fringe knowledge. The fact that it appeared in a major medical reference suggests the practice was already well established and widely understood by that point.
Ancient Greece and Rome both had extensive familiarity with abortion. Plato referenced it, though vaguely. Hippocrates appeared to disapprove, while Roman society was more openly accepting. The Greek physician Dioscorides, writing in the first century CE, cataloged numerous plants and their uses for ending pregnancy, often in precise detail. These weren’t folk remedies passed along in whispers. They were recorded in formal medical texts studied for centuries.
Herbal Methods Used for Millennia
Long before surgical techniques existed, plants were the primary tool. Several of the herbs documented by ancient Greek and Roman physicians have since been confirmed by modern research to have real biological effects on pregnancy.
- Pennyroyal: Known to the Greeks and Romans as an anti-fertility drug, referenced in everything from the comedic plays of Aristophanes to the medical writings of Pliny and Galen.
- Artemisia (mugwort): Dioscorides described it as useful for “driving out” a pregnancy when applied or drunk in specific preparations. Modern studies have confirmed it acts as an effective abortifacient.
- Rue: Dioscorides labeled it explicitly as a substance that could “kill the embryo.” Animal studies have shown rue can induce abortion, particularly in very early pregnancy.
- Birthwort: Described as effective when drunk with wine, pepper, and myrrh. Recent animal studies found it has a 100 percent interceptive rate in mice.
- Juniper (savin): Galen identified it bluntly as an abortifacient, writing simply “it aborts.” Modern research confirms it interrupts a significant percentage of animal pregnancies, though it carries toxicity risks.
These plants remained in use for centuries. Tudor-era English herbalists drew directly on the classical texts of Dioscorides and Galen, copying their recipes and descriptions with minor modifications. Knowledge of herbal abortion methods was passed continuously from antiquity through the medieval and early modern periods.
The “Quickening” Standard in Early Law
For most of English legal history, abortion before “quickening” was not a crime. Quickening is the point when a pregnant person first feels fetal movement, typically 16 to 20 weeks into a pregnancy. Before 1803, English common law drew a clear line at this moment. The legal reasoning came from jurists like Coke and Blackstone, who held that life “begins in contemplation of law as soon as the infant is able to stir in the mother’s womb.”
Even after quickening, the legal consequences varied depending on which authority you consulted. The medieval legal scholar Bracton considered post-quickening abortion equivalent to murder. Coke, writing later, classified it as only a misdemeanor. Early American law inherited this framework. Most early state statutes distinguished between abortion before and after quickening, punishing pre-quickening abortion leniently and post-quickening abortion severely.
How Abortion Became Illegal in the U.S.
The widespread criminalization of abortion in America happened in the mid-to-late 1800s, driven largely by an organized campaign within the medical profession. Connecticut passed the first state law regulating abortion in 1821, prohibiting the use of poisons to induce miscarriage after quickening, with a punishment of life imprisonment. Missouri, Illinois, and New York followed within the decade.
The real turning point came in 1857, when physician Horatio Robinson Storer launched what became one of the most successful public policy campaigns in American history. Storer and his allies in the American Medical Association pushed for anti-abortion statutes in every state, and they largely succeeded. Between 1860 and 1880, more than 40 anti-abortion laws were written into state and territorial codes. Connecticut’s 1860 law was particularly significant: it threw out the quickening distinction entirely and made abortion a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. By 1900, abortion was a criminal offense in nearly every part of the country.
The physicians behind this campaign had several motivations. They genuinely believed life began at conception and considered abortion at any stage morally equivalent to murder. But professional self-interest also played a role. Doctors in 19th-century America were not highly regarded and were competing with midwives, herbalists, and other practitioners who commonly provided abortion services. Outlawing abortion helped consolidate medical authority. One physician at the time attributed “the whole odium of the hostility of physicians” to “their competition for business and money.” Demographic anxiety added another layer: the U.S. birth rate had dropped from about seven children per woman to about four over the course of the century, and abortion rates had risen roughly 300 percent.
Modern Techniques and Medical Abortion
Surgical abortion methods advanced significantly in the 20th century. Harvey Karman developed a flexible soft tube, known as the Karman cannula, for vacuum aspiration. This technique became the standard for early pregnancy termination worldwide and remains widely used today.
The development of medication-based abortion marked another major shift. French researchers developed mifepristone (commonly known as RU-486) in the 1980s, and France approved it in 1988. The United States didn’t approve it until September 28, 2000, twelve years after its original synthesis. Medication abortion using a two-drug regimen has since become one of the most common methods globally.
Legal Shifts in the U.S. and Around the World
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the Constitution protected the right to abortion. That decision stood for nearly 50 years before being overturned on June 24, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case involved a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, which violated the Roe framework. The Court held that the Constitution does not provide a right to abortion, returning the question to individual states.
Globally, the trend over the past few decades has moved largely in the opposite direction, with many countries expanding access. Ireland repealed its constitutional abortion ban in 2018, legalizing the procedure up to 12 weeks. Argentina legalized abortion through 14 weeks in 2020 after years of mass demonstrations. Colombia’s Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks in 2022. Mexico’s Supreme Court fully decriminalized abortion at the federal level in 2023. South Africa enshrined the right to abortion in its post-apartheid constitution in 1996. Uruguay legalized abortion in 2012, and San Marino did the same in 2022 with a 12-week limit.
In Australia, legalization happened state by state over several decades, with the Australian Capital Territory acting in 1993, Queensland in 2018, and South Australia in 2021. In parts of Africa, Ethiopia expanded access in 2005 for cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment, and pregnancies involving minors. Benin legalized abortion shortly before Roe was overturned in the United States.
The practice of ending pregnancy is as old as recorded medicine. What has changed constantly, across every era and society, is who controls the decision and under what circumstances.