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Well Roman laws contained fairly severe penalties for infanticide [1], while the practice was common it was certainly frowned up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/

• dotancohen 5y ago
  Often, you'll find that taboos or prohibitions in one society often correlate with prevalence of the practice among neighboring states. "They do that, we do not" is not uncommon even today, and during antiquity was important enough to codify into law.
• Someone 5y ago
  From that page: - “The practice was prevalent in ancient Rome, as well” - “Infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374, but offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted” 374 is fairly close to the fall of Rome, which Wikipedia sets at 395-476 AD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...), so from that page, it doesn’t seem it was that severely punished during most of th years the Roman Empire existed.
  • heavenlyblue 5y ago
    /irony And now we got all the way to anti-abortionists claiming that killing the child even after any signs of pregnancy is illegal.
• PeterisP 5y ago
  Roman laws (Twelve tables from 449 BC) explicitly granted the right to infanticide - as the link states, it was banned only in 4th century (at the split of the Rome, and near the end of Western Roman Empire) but was allowed throughout all the 800+ years of the iconic "Ancient Rome".