[Opinions about fetal personhood and abortion have fluctuated
enormously throughout history and differ in surprising ways between
cultures.]
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF PERSONHOOD AND ABORTION  
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Brianna Muir
August 25, 2022
Sapiens
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_ Opinions about fetal personhood and abortion have fluctuated
enormously throughout history and differ in surprising ways between
cultures. _

Cultural conceptions about personhood are somewhat abstract. Some
societies saw fetuses as plant-like; others believed personhood
occurred only when the fetus first moved., Hillary Kladke/Getty Images


 

AFTER THE U.S. SUPREME Court overturned _Roe v. Wade_ in June,
states have been increasingly grappling with what it means to be a
person. Georgia recently passed a law granting personhood to fetuses
as soon as there is a detectable heartbeat
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while a judge in Arizona blocked a similar law
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Meanwhile, a pregnant woman in Texas argued she can legally drive in
the carpool lane because according to state law, her fetus is a
person
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Arguments about fetal personhood
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been key to the abortion debate since _Roe v. Wade_ was argued in
the 1970s. That landmark case determined a fetus became a person only
when it was viable outside the womb. But Supreme Court Justice Samuel
Alito wrote in his recent ruling that drawing the line of personhood
at viability is “arbitrary” and “makes no sense.”
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Personhood—the status or quality of being a person—sounds
straightforward. But actually, humans have been wrestling with this
complex idea for thousands of years.

How have beliefs about personhood and abortion changed throughout
history? To investigate these questions, archaeologists and
anthropologists have conducted ethnographic interviews, pored over
written records, and searched for evidence in funerary sites. They
have found that attitudes about personhood and abortion have shifted
greatly over time, vary dramatically by culture, and are heavily
influenced by prejudices and power struggles.

CULTURAL CONCEPTS OF PERSONHOOD

There is no universal concept of personhood; in fact, personhood
isn’t even exclusive to people. In various cultures, personhood can
be granted to nonhuman animals, objects
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and even corporations
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For example, Mande cultures in West Africa
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animals such as lions and leopards persons within specific clans.
Conversely, personhood can be denied to human beings—in the case of
slavery or of some people with disabilities
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In Western, industrialized societies today, a person is typically
thought of as an indivisible individual, with their personhood largely
fixed from birth, if not before. But many Indigenous and traditional
cultures view personhood very differently. According to one
archaeological and ethnographic review, numerous societies consider
infants and even children to be “not yet persons
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Often, children have to pass through social and cultural milestones
before being accepted into their community and granted personhood. For
the Tallensi in Ghana, people can’t achieve personhood until after
they die
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become an ancestor.

Occupy Oakland participants protest “corporate personhood,” the
idea that in some cases, U.S. law treats corporations as “artificial
persons” with rights such as unrestricted spending on political
campaigns.  Eddie Codel/Flickr
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In some cultures, a person may be a mosaic of divisible parts, and
their personhood is believed to morph throughout their life. For the
Wari’ in Brazil, personhood emphasizes the physical body and
interconnectedness. An individual is created through the continual
exchange of bodily fluids
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and their personhood changes as fluids from other individuals are
integrated into their bodies. Similarly, some cultures in Papua New
Guinea see personhood as fluid, divisible, and exchangeable; each
“person” is in a “constant state of becoming and being and can
be thought of as fractal in nature,” writes archaeologist Nyree
Finlay
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All the above examples come from anthropological studies of living
cultures. But investigating personhood in past cultures, especially
those with no written records, is more challenging. Most
archaeological studies assessing personhood use mortuary remains to
reconstruct social attitudes toward certain individuals as a proxy for
community ideas of personhood.

For example, archaeologist Jessica Cerezo-Román
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funerary contexts among the ancient Hohokam
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what is now Arizona and found shifts in concepts of personhood over
time. In the pre-classic period, the Hohokam distributed cremated
remains as possessions among social networks, suggesting they had a
relational sense of self and considered remains to be part person,
part object. [1] In the classic period, they deposited ashes as a
single unit in a single place, indicating their views of personhood
may have been more bounded and individualistic.

It’s difficult for archaeologists to study ancient abortion
practices since fetuses are unlikely to be preserved
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However, archaeologists do have evidence that infanticide has been
practiced [[link removed]] by a
wide range of cultures since at least the last ice age. And ancient
societies that practiced writing left behind intriguing insights about
personhood and abortion.

PERSONHOOD AND ABORTION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Numerous written records from ancient Greece, Rome, and Assyria
indicate that for the most part, the personhood of fetuses and young
infants was delayed and not guaranteed. In ancient Greece,
philosophers imagined the fetus as something similar to a plant
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grown from male “seed” sowed into the “earth” of a female.
They held varying views
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when the fetus gained a soul (“ensoulment”) and, consequently,
personhood. Some thought ensoulment occurred at fertilization, while
others believed souls entered male fetuses at 40 days and female
fetuses at 90 days.

In ancient Rome, personhood apparently was attained after birth. Roman
texts indicate that following a birth, a family decided whether
to keep the infant or expose it
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the elements, leaving it to die or be rescued. There were no social or
legal consequences for exposing an infant. If a family kept their
child, the infant was not given a name until they were 8 or 9 days
old
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and there was no formal grieving period for the death of a child less
than 1 year of age. Full social personhood was generally not bestowed
on a child until age 10.

A fresco depicts Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome,
being abandoned by a river. Exposing infants was a socially accepted
practice in ancient Rome. DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images

Archaeological evidence also provides insights into the personhood of
infants in this era. In Rome, infants were rarely buried
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adults in community cemeteries, which might mean they were not
considered fully part of the broader community because they had lesser
personhood, though some archaeologists would interpret these findings
differently.

The first known abortion laws appear in the Code of Hammurabi, written
in Assyria in 1772 B.C. Assyrian women were punished
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aborting their fetuses, but fathers were allowed to kill newborn
babies, indicating the law was designed to control the woman’s right
to choose rather than to protect the fetus.

In the Greco-Roman world, evidence broadly suggests abortion was
accessible and permitted most of the time. The main contraceptive and
abortifacient was a plant known as silphium
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was minted on coins and driven to extinction. In cases when
contraceptives or abortifacients weren’t accessible or successful,
exposure or infanticide were options, though how often this occurred
in the Greco-Roman world is a matter of debate
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community.

Greek and Roman law had little concern for the fetus. With only a few
exceptions, abortions were legal and unprosecuted prior to the third
century. In rare cases when abortions were brought to court, it was
due to perceived damage to the husband or his estate
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since the woman’s body and her unborn children were considered the
property of her husband.

It’s no coincidence that laws against abortion were established at a
state level only in the third century, when the Roman Empire was
worried about outside threats to their lands and collective identity.
The laws were introduced by Emperor Septimius Severus and Emperor
Caracalla, who attempted to increase the Roman population
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outlawing abortion and granting citizenship to all free men in the
empire.

MEDIEVAL CONCEPTS OF ABORTION AND PERSONHOOD

By the Middle Ages in Europe, the fetus was still envisioned as a
plant-like entity, but conceptualizations of ensoulment, and thus the
beginnings of personhood, differed somewhat from ancient times. Texts
indicate medieval Europeans believed ensoulment occurred in the womb,
usually around four to six months when the mother felt the fetus
“quickening,” or moving. From then on, fetuses had a social
presence and existed in a state of limbo until they could be baptized.
Infants who were stillborn or died before they could be baptized were
said to exist in limbo for eternity.

This attitude is visible in the archaeological record. Infants who
died prior to baptism could not be buried in consecrated ground,
although archaeologists such as Barbara Hausmair
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Murphy
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demonstrated various ways people tried to circumvent these religious
rulings. Baptism, in this way, can be seen as a marker of social
personhood. As in earlier times, personhood was granted incrementally
to the fetus and infant as they passed through important milestones.

A 14th-century miniature painting portrays a Christian baptism, which
granted a kind of social personhood to babies in medieval Europe.
PHAS/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Despite the expanding power of the Christian church and the associated
regulation of sexual lives, abortions still happened
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As talk of abortion methods grew more private, abortion and
contraception increasingly became the purview of women’s cultural
and folk knowledge, particularly through midwives and “witches,”
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were periodically persecuted. Herbs appear to be the main abortive
method
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according to multiple medieval medical and pharmaceutical texts.

Abortions could be legally prosecuted, though the severity of
punishment varied. Abortions motivated by adultery were considered
heinous
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while those due to sexual assault may not have been punished
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all. In most cases, the Catholic church implicitly condoned abortions
that occurred before the quickening of the fetus until 1869
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Broadly, attitudes toward abortion were less about the fetus itself
and more about regulation and control. As historian Roland Betancourt
states
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abortion in medieval times was “intimately associated with a
patriarchal control of lineage and reproduction.”

PERSONHOOD AND ABORTION IN THE 19TH-CENTURY UNITED STATES

In many regions in the Western world, the 19th century was a time of
change for ideas surrounding fetal personhood. Developing medical
science and obstetrical research moved concepts of fetal development
away from plant-like natures and toward new concerns over the welfare
of embryos.

The quickening of a fetus remained an important marker of initial
personhood. But based on evidence of naming conventions, it appears
that attaining full personhood was a gradual process and not
universally granted. According to birth and death records, one in five
infants who died during birth or in the immediate weeks after did not
have a recorded name
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they were listed simply as “deceased infant.”

Abortions were illegal only after the quickening; prior to that,
surgical and herbal remedies were readily available
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blatantly advertised by unregulated providers. Abortion was both
common and lucrative. “Contemporary accounts suggest that one in
five 19th-century pregnancies may have ended in abortion,” writes
archaeologist Andrea Zlotucha Kozub
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This is supported by archaeological evidence. The remains of fetuses
discovered in privy shafts
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City have been interpreted as evidence for abortion, as have glass
bottles of abortion pills
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in middle-class people’s outhouses. An estimated 75–90 percent of
abortions performed during this time were procured by married women
who already had children, especially those from the White, Protestant
middle class.

However, by 1880, every state had completely criminalized all forms
of abortion
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exceptions for a woman’s health or to prevent her from dying. What
changed? Essentially, it boils down to two factors: economics and
racism.

Physicians were the leading anti-choice campaigners of the time. While
some no doubt had genuine moral and medical concerns surrounding
abortion, an anti-choice stance was also politically and economically
convenient. Traditionally, contraception and abortion were primarily
overseen by midwives and other “nonprofessional” practitioners of
medicine. These skilled women—around half of whom were
Black—represented significant competition
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doctors.

A midwife prepares her kit to care for a patient in the U.S. state of
Georgia in 1941. Jack Delano/ Library of Congress

After the American Medical Association formed in 1847, the group moved
to demonize abortion and make it illegal, thereby establishing the
medical profession as morally and scientifically superior to
traditional female-led reproductive health care. By marginalizing
midwifery and criminalizing abortion, these physicians protected their
financial interests. More women having more children led to more
business for male physicians, who had positioned themselves as the
sole providers of obstetrical care.

The improving access to contraceptives and abortifacients in the first
half of the 19th century led to a declining birthrate, especially
among the White, Protestant middle class
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occurring around the same time Black people who were enslaved gained
freedom, created a panic among demographers and politicians who
worried the White majority would lose its political and cultural
dominance
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creating laws that regulated all women, it was hoped that more
married, White women would produce more White children.

PERSONHOOD AND ABORTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

In recent decades, technology has influenced perceptions of fetal
personhood. Reproductive anthropologists have described how sonogram
images have created an earlier “social birth,”
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has shifted fetal personhood to earlier in gestation and impacted
abortion rights. Some states in the U.S., for example, require
patients to undergo a medically unnecessary
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ultrasound prior to a pregnancy termination, with the aim
of humanizing the embryo
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convincing some women to change their minds.

Despite these technological shifts, it’s interesting to see how
much _hasn’t_ changed over time in regard to personhood and
abortion.

The modern anti-choice movement has deep ties with white supremacy
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nationalism
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This is echoed throughout history, from ancient Rome criminalizing
abortions only when the empire needed a population boost, to the
19th-century U.S. outlawing abortion partly due to fears over
transformations in racial demographics.

In 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade was decided, demonstrators marched
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to defend reproductive rights. Barbara
Freeman/Getty Images

 

In addition, as anthropologist Sophie Bjork-James
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in regard to her study of evangelicals, denying women autonomy over
their reproductive choices preserves the current patriarchal order
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hearkens back to Bronze Age Assyria, when women were forbidden to
abort their fetuses but men were allowed to commit infanticide, and to
ancient Rome, when unborn children were the sole property of the
father and anti-abortion literature centered on reining in women’s
uncontrolled sexuality
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Throughout history and today, when it comes to abortion, issues of
personhood are enmeshed with misogyny, prejudice, and the desire to
control women to preserve power. After all, if the contemporary
anti-abortion movement were purely about protecting life and
personhood, it would simultaneously fund welfare programs, advocate
for gun control, and support the abolition of the death penalty, among
other things.

Ultimately, as anthropologist Linda Layne
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“personhood is fundamentally political
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_BRIANNA MUIR [[link removed]] is a master’s
student in biological anthropology at the University of Central
Florida. As an emerging bioarchaeologist
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she is interested in how integrative approaches can be used to address
questions of personhood, identity, and agency in the past. In
particular, she investigates how these factors may have shaped and
influenced a person’s lived experiences. Muir received her B.A. from
the Australian National University in 2019 and has undertaken
fieldwork and research in the Philippines, Vanuatu, and Australia._

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* anthropology
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* Politics
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* abortion
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* Fetal personhood
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* History
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* Women
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* pregnancy
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* archeology
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