Abortion in Themiclesia

Abortion in Themiclesia is a legal, political, and social topic, characterized by social stigma and affected by changing attitudes and developing legal theories. Today, abortions are legal at any point in pregnancy, under the doctrine that a fetus is not a person, but arguments have varied in the past as to the legality of abortions and the rights of parents.

History

Premodern

The legal discourse about abortion in Themiclesia has historically been virtually exclusive of any argument other than family and inheritance law. In no known case controverted before a court of law was a fetus ever treated as a independent entity that exists outside of the family's interest to have a source of productivity or male person's interest to have an heir to his clan name, titles, and property. In this light, most legal scholars concur that to ancient Themiclesian jurists, fetuses were property that belonged to others and not persons capable of humanity. Themiclesian law formerly allowed persons to be property of others, such as slaves were property to their owners but possessed certain personal rights against arbitrary homicide or mutilation, even by their owners. However, fetuses were considered inanimate entities, capable of being of value to others but not capable of personhood.

Most cases controverting the legality of abortion prior to 1800 arise over a male person's "offspring of the body" as his legal heir. Once the heir inherits, his mother had a number of obligations placed as the legal widow of the deceased. For a variety of reasons, pregnant mothers may not wish to undertake these obligations and thus abort the fetus. Traditionally, Themiclesians place much value on continuation of the family line, and any offspring of the body, legitimate or not, had a place as a successor to his male progenitor's family, social, and sometimes political status. Legally speaking, killing a person's established heir was an offence against the person and his family, and the killer could be ordered to pay as much money as will be required to find or rear another suitable heir. For instance, if a farming family had some productive farmland and an heir who was expected to become the proprietor of said land and the main source of agricultural productivity, killing such an heir would indebt the killer to find another suitable (i.e. equally productive) heir to the land or, where it is not possible, to pay for the expense of raising another male child until he could take over from the ageing father; if the land were to fall to waste in the meantime, the killer would have to ensure its previous level of productivity, as though the killed heir was alive, until the new heir was able to be as productive, or at any rate make payment to the same effect.

The controversy then lies in whether a fetus is capable of being an heir to such familial and personal interests and obligations. If the fetus is recognized as heir, then the party that destroyed it would be financially responsible for its replacement. Peripheral to this question frequently were others, such as whether the heir was presumptively or positively established, or whether the pregnant mother was a stranger, legal spouse, concubine, or slave to the male that impregnated her. Unfortunately, judgments were not consistent through history:

• In 244, a civil servant sued his divorced wife for destroying a fetus that he claims is his heir, claiming the expenses of raising and educating a boy to be a civil servant. The judge said that the fetus must be male for this damage to be real, and there is no evidence that the fetus was male. The judgement was for the defendant.
• In 470, a wife was sued by her husband for aborting a fetus he claims is his heir. The wife averred that the child was with her husband's servant, who seduced and had sex with her. The judge said that since the husband could not prove the fetus' parentage, he had no right to sue.
• In 482, a man who bought a slavewomen allowed her to drive a vehicle, but she ran over a boy. Sued at court, judgment was for the family of the boy killed, the slavewomen to be strangled. But during trial she was found pregnant, and the owner of the slavewomen agreed with the grieved party to surrender the slavewomen's future child as compensation for their boy, amongst other goods. However, the man who sold the slavewomen to her current owner claimed that the fetus was his heir and must not be handed over. He argues that the fetus did not belong to the criminal slavewomen but to him instead, and since he had no part in runing over the boy, he should not lose his property to the case at hand. The owner of the slavewomen denied that she was pregnant when he acquired her. This particular case stirred public attention in Kien-k'ang but never reached a conclusion; the slavewomen miscarried and died in prison after six years.
• In 525, a woman from a wealth family married with a considerable dowry into a poorer man's family. One day he caused injury to her fetus and demanded she visit a physician at her own expense. She refused, and eventually the fetus miscarried. The husband brought her family to court, arguing that she had not obeyed him to seek a physician's treatment. Her family argued that the husband was not willing to pay for the treatment and had demanded her to use her dowry for treatment, which she was not obliged to do. Judgment was for the wife's family. The husband appealed to the Council of Lords that he had a legal interest to have an heir that was damnified by his wife's refusal to see a physician. The Council affirmed the court below that the man's own property was smaller than his wife's, so the principal legal interest to have an heir belonged to the wife, since her dowry would pass to her son upon her death.