Because a family's salary could only support so many people, financial matters as well as the shocking hardships involved in childbirth during the middle ages, abortion often became a necessary option to actually having a child. Abortion, as it existed in medieval times was potentially as dangerous as actually having a baby. Although various contraceptive measures were practiced, these had little effect and women continued to have babies to no avail.(Gies 15)
Various methods were used for aborting a fetus. These included various potions and folklore herbs to "scathe the babe away", as well as "hitting or pressing a pregnant woman so as to kill the fetus."(Hanawalt 101) Only one account of abortion exists in a coroner's inquest, and it goes like this:
"On 12 Dec. 1503 Joan Wynspere of Basford, 'singilwoman', being pregnant, at Basford drank divers poison and dangerous draughts to destroy the child in her womb, of which she immediately died. Thus, she feloniously slew and poisoned herself and also the child in her womb."(Hanawalt 101)
English writers were the first to link abortion with manslaughter. (Hanawalt 101) In Rome abortion was not considered a healthy or wise choice, but rather an abomination.(Gies 15)
Gies, Frances and Joseph. Women in the Middle Ages. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1978.
Hanawalt, Barbara A. The Ties That Bound, Peasant Farmers in Medieval
England. New York: Oxford English Press., 1986.