Tertullian, Against Abortion even to Save the Mother's Life

[Phil D.]

I recently came across this strong statement from Tertullian (early church father in Carthage; c.155-c.240) - some very graphic language is used:

How are they dead unless they were first alive? But still in the womb an infant by necessary cruelty is killed when lying twisted at the womb's mouth he prevents birth and is a matricide unless he dies. Therefore there is among the arms of physicians an instrument by which with a rotary movement the genital parts are first opened, then with a cervical instrument the interior members are slaughtered with careful judgment by a blunt barb, so that the whole criminal deed is extracted with a violent delivery. There is also the bronze needle by which the throat-cutting is carried out by a robbery in the dark; this instrument is called and embryo knife from its function of infanticide, as it is deadly for the living infant.​

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This Hippocrates taught, and Asclepiades, and Erasistratus and Herophilus, the dissector of adults, and the milder Soranos himself - all of them certain that a living being had been conceived and so deploring the most unhappy infancy of one of this kind who had first to be killed lest a live woman be rent apart. Of this necessity of crime, Hicesius, I believe did not doubt, as he added souls to those being born from blows of cold air, because the word itself for "soul" among the Greek relates to such a cooling. (De Anima [The Soul] 25.5,6)​

 

[Phil D.]

Actually, as I now reread the above translation, I could see where he might be thought to either say the act even to save the mother was still a crime (third sentence "Therefore...the whole criminal deed"). Or if he wasn't using "criminal" in an absolute sense, then he might be seen as saying to do so was a "necessary cruelty" (second sentence).

Perhaps someone more fluent in Latin can comment. @CharlieJohnson

Qui autem et mortui, nisi qui prius uiui? Atquin et in ipso adhuc utero infans trucidatur necessaria crudelitate, cum in exitu obliquatus denegat partum, matricida, ni moriturus. Itaque est inter arma medicorum et cum organo, ex quo prius patescere secreta coguntur tortili temperamento, cum anulocultro, quo intus membra caeduntur anxio arbitrio, cum hebete unco, quo totum facinus extrahitur uiolento puerperio. Est etiam aeneum spiculum, quo iugulatio ipsa dirigitur caeco latrocinio; ἐμβρυοσφάκτην appellant de infanticidii officio, utique uiuentis infantis peremptorium. Hoc et Hippocrates habuit et Asclepiades et Erasistratus et maiorum quoque prosector Herophilus et mitior ipse Soranus, certi animal esse conceptum atque ita miserti infelicissimae huiusmodi infantiae, ut prius occidatur, ne uiua lanietur. De qua sceleris necessitate nec dubitabat, credo, Hicesius, iam natis animam superducens ex aeris frigidi pulsu, quia et ipsum uocabulum animae penes Graecos de refrigeratione respondens.​

 

[Charles Johnson]

Personally it seems unlikely to me that he would have called it a necessary cruelty if his intent was to condemn the act. His purpose seems more along the lines of showing that the foetus is alive and possesses a rational soul. He also affirms the claim that the mother will die if the child is not removed.
Regarding the language used, I think that in the line
that the whole criminal deed is extracted with a violent delivery, "criminal deed", facinus, probably refers to the obstructive infant, not to the act of removal, since the child is extracted, not the deed, and since, according to the lexicon, it can also be used rhetorically to refer to the instrument of a crime, rather than to the crime itself.

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/facinus

 

[Phil D.]

Thanks, that does seem to make the most sense given the overall context. I probably wasn't reading it carefully enough.