Both Plato and Aristotle approved of abortion, the former in the interests of wise population policy, the latter chiefly on the ground that it was an element of the family’s proper freedom in the state. Hippocrates’ words on the subject are, in the original Greek, somewhat less blunt and categorical than modern takers of the Hippocratic Oath have sometimes suggested. All Hippocrates says is: “I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.” There were other means of abortion known to the Greeks, none of which Hippocrates abjures.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Both Plato and Aristotle approved of abortion, the former in the interests of wise population policy, the latter chiefly on the ground that it was an element of the family’s proper freedom in the state. Hippocrates’ words on the subject are, in the original Greek, somewhat less blunt and categorical than modern takers of the Hippocratic Oath have sometimes suggested. All Hippocrates says is: “I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.” There were other means of abortion known to the Greeks, none of which Hippocrates abjures." in the context of "Evelyn B. Kelly, Stem Cells (Greenwood Press 2007 ISBN 0-313-33763-2), p.2" to mean that wisdom is timeless.