Ensoulment is defined as when a soul enters the body. As early as the Classical period, the uncertainty of when ensoulment occurred was closely tied to abortion. Since the Greeks had no laws on abortion, the personal opinion of philosophers and physicians defined the general acceptability of abortion based on ensoulment. However, abortion was not only debated among the Greeks. In Judaism, for example, there was one overarching law, namely that the destruction of a human was not only inacceptable but also punishable. The belief in the time of ensoulment dictated the severity of the punishment for abortion in the Jewish culture. As both cultures relied upon ensoulment as a moderator for the discussion of abortion, the question that can be asked is why law encompassed the fetus in Judaism, a religion that neighbored the Greeks, but was never established among the Greeks. By contrasting the nature of ensoulment as a condition for abortion among Greeks and Jews, it can be understood that the Greeks perceived the fetus as a living thing, but not as a human being. The discussion spans six centuries and encompasses works from philosophers, physicians, and biblical texts.
