Power and the Reproduction of History: Twentieth-Century Histories of Abortion in the Ancient Mediterranean World

This essay explores issues of identity and power in twentieth-century scholarship on abortion in the ancient Mediterranean world. I consider how two scholars, John T. Noonan, Jr. and Beverly Wildung Harrison, approach the same ancient Christian sources from different theoretical frameworks: narrative historiography and feminist liberation ethics, respectively. While Noonan’s historical narrative on ancient Christian opposition to abortion demonstrates the “moral supremacy” of Christianity, Harrison’s historical counternarrative reads the ancient sources as borne out of the “sex-negativism” of a minority of ancient Christians. In this analysis I focus on the ways in which the production of history manufactures power by means of authority and legitimacy, particularly for each scholar’s own religious identity and views on the morality of abortion in America. In conclusion, I consider the interests of the respective authors in the production of these histories.