What is more likely is birth control will become better and more reliable (including hormonal bc for men), drastically decreasing the need for abortion.

Given that the use of abortifacients is well documented for the entire duration of recorded history, this seems unlikely.

From your link, it appears abortion has been controversial for the entire duration of recorded history. It would be accurate to say that some past societies would view current abortion practices as barbaric, but perhaps not all past societies.

Hmm, okay, but I was thinking in terms of a comparison with our current feelings. It's still controversial now, but it wouldn't really be accurate to say that 'our society' views the practice as barbaric - though of course many individuals do, and doubtless always have and will.

I don't believe that we are any more likely to choose abortion now than at any other point in history. The option is a lot easier now, so the numbers presumably work out higher, but it's more than just a societal phase that makes it seem appealing (for want of a better word) to a lot of people.

I'll admit I didn't really have ancient China or Greece in mind when I referred to the past -- I was thinking more along the lines of the past couple hundred years in the West. You know, that same group of folks that we criticize and feel so morally superior to on account of slavery. I mean, slavery among the Aztecs or the ancient Romans was bad, but somehow we gloss over that. It's just a part of who they were, something they did in moral ignorance. By contrast, we feel that 18th century Americans and Europeans should have known better.

We criticize that group for slavery, but I think they would criticize us for our practice of abortion. The history on that page seems to match my intuition on that; abortion was illegal (for heaven's sake--it was a capital crime in the UK!) and disgraceful, though certainly practiced. I stand by my assertion that the past would be apalled at us. Rightly so, I think.

Looking toward the future, I find the diversity of recent law in many countries interesting. But one pattern I particularly find interesting -- and perhaps I pick it out because it matches my expectation -- is the proliferation of age limits. Legal abortion before eight weeks, ten weeks, twelve, fourteen, even twenty-four, depending on the country; illegal thereafter with exeptions for emergencies. The younger the life in the womb, the more I think reasonable people can disagree on its status. During the first trimester, when 20-40% of pregnancies fail anyway despite our best efforts, when the shape of the body is alien and the activity of the mind couldn't even be called sleep, the degree of tragedy in abortion is debatable. By the third trimester, when the thresholds of viability and ability to react and interact and play and feel joy and pain have all been passed, anyone who thinks it isn't a baby isn't paying attention.

Slavery throughout history has not been a uniform phenomenon. Sometimes it looked a lot like employment does now; sometimes it involved human sacrifice. Even in the antebellum south, the experience was diverse; post-emancipation, there were slaves who loved their masters as family and stayed close and took their names, others who hated them with bitter and justifiable fire. But we remember and criticize the cruelty -- the worst incarnation of slavery. That is what we remember, that is the thing about which we say, "How could they have let that continue for so long?"

So it will be with us. As science advances and viability retreats younger and younger and we discover invisible threads of humanity in younger and younger lives, the window of reasonable disagreement will shrink. Maybe to 20 weeks, maybe to 12, maybe to 8; I don't know. We won't be remembered for our prompt six week abortions--that might always remain a religious question. But the bloody affairs at seven and a half months on tenuous reasoning?

Barbaric. I think future generations will ask, aghast, how we could possibly have allowed that.