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Preventing Pregnancy: Dante And Medieval Culture, Anne C. Leone

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This article provides an overview of the dominant views expressed in legal, medical and religious/theological traditions in the late Middle Ages in order to illustrate two basic points: 1) that the “historical precedent” with regard to abortive practices in the medieval Christian West was less homogenous and more diverse than the Supreme Court Justices assumed in their opinion delivered in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022); and 2) that – in stark contrast with what many anti-abortion activists today might assume about the historical precedent, – medieval thinkers did not generally believe that human life begins at conception.

The …