ABSTRACT
The emergence of what people associate today with medical science was a gradual process, which started during the Enlightenment and had a decisive breakthrough in the nineteenth century. The change in living conditions was dramatic for working class men, childcare was women's domain, and frequent births and large families became increasingly problematic. Augustine's doctrine on sexuality, procreation, and Original Sin, Calvin clearly saw the spilling of seed as a violation of the Christian notion of marriage. In Britain, the Married Women's Property Act gave married women the legal right to inherit and to dispose of their earnings. In 1837, the traditional Christian distinction was removed, however, making British abortion laws stricter than Canon law at the time. Von Baer explains how the growth of the fertilized egg proceeds from homogeneous matter to ever more heterogeneous forms. A specifically female body function like pregnancy meant that a woman had one additional bodily characteristic which made her less mind and more body.
