Historical status of the embryo

Historical status of the embryo

For most of recorded history, people have fundamentally disagreed about the moral status of the human embryo.

In early times this was because people knew very little about what actually went on in the womb - and so had very little idea what an embryo was.

Later, the problem was that a pregnancy could not be recognised until it was well established and the embryo made its presence felt by causing unmistakeable symptoms in the mother or by starting to move in the womb.

At this stage of pregnancy, it was natural to think of the embryo as a being that was able to do things, and they assumed that this was also true of the very earliest (and unknown) stages of pregnancy.

Find out more

• Historical attitudes to abortion
• Early feminists' views of abortion