Ovid (43 BC - AD 65) Of what avail to fair woman to rest free
from the burdens of war [i.e. pregnancy], nor choose with shield
in arm to march in the fierce array, if, free from peril of
battle, she suffer wounds from weapons of her own, and arm her
unforeseeing hands to her own undoing? She who first plucked
forth the tender life deserved to die in the warfare she began.
Can it be that, to spare your bosom the reproach of lines, you
would scatter the tragic sands of deadly combat? -De Nuce, lines
22-23; cf. Amores 2.13 Poor women…endure the perils of
childbirth, and all the troubles of nursing to which their lot
condemns them; but how often does a gilded bed contain a woman
that is lying in it? So great is the skill, so powerful the
drugs, of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the
womb. In reference to Augustinian legislation of 28 BC and 9 AD:
-The lawgivers, who had the same task of searching out and
finding what was good for the city and what bad, and what helped
or harmed it, did not they als