On Aristotle’s notion of abortion

Abstract

In Book VII of Politics, Aristotle discusses abortion as one of the means of population control. Since the prosperity of a state depends, among other factors, on finding the right balance between its size and the number of inhabitants, Aristotle argues that abortion is permissible in cases where the prescribed number of children is exceeded, but only ?before the onset of sensation and life,? which means before it acquires a sensitive soul. A detailed analysis of Aristotle?s understanding of human physiological development shows that the fetus acquires a sensitive soul on the fortieth or ninetieth day after conception, and this is taken as the limit beyond which abortion is not permitted. Aristotle believed that the fetus does originate as a human being, but gradually becomes one through development. Considering the broader context in which Aristotle discusses abortion, we can see that, despite the normative framework, these considerations cannot be understood outside the place they have in his theory and cannot be abstracted and applied directly to the contemporary bioethical debate on abortion.