I have never, ever understood the logic of having an exemption for rape but nothing else
Spot on. 'Abortion is murder but in this one instance, okay, go ahead'.
Not logical. None of it is logical, though, really. These are difficult, complicated issues with lots of varying factors. It quickly falls apart when one tries to simplify it to 'no abortion' - too many horrible consequences become apparent.
Abortion has been a fact of life for as long as we've understood pregnancy.
' In the epic Ramayana, there is description that the practice of abortion was being done by the surgeons or barbers in those days.[3] The only evidence of the death penalty being mandated for abortion in the ancient laws is found in Assyrian Law, in the Code of Assura, c. 1075 BCE;[4] and this is imposed only on a woman who procures an abortion against her husband's wishes. The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE.[5]
Many of the methods employed in early cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities such as: strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving were a common technique. Others included the use of irritant leaves, fasting, bloodletting, pouring hot water onto the abdomen, and lying on a heated coconut shell.[6] In virtually all cultures, abortion techniques developed through observation, adaptation of obstetrical methods, and transculturation.[7] Physical means of inducing abortion, including battery, exercise, and tightening the girdle were still often used as late as the Early Modern Period among English women.[8]
Archaeological discoveries indicate early surgical attempts at the extraction of a fetus; however, such methods are not believed to have been common, given the infrequency with which they are mentioned in ancient medical texts.[9]
An 8th-century Sanskrit text instructs women wishing to induce an abortion to sit over a pot of steam or stewed onions.[10] The technique of massage abortion, involving the application of pressure to the pregnant abdomen, has been practiced in Southeast Asia for centuries. One of the bas reliefs decorating the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, dated c. 1150, depicts a demon performing such an abortion upon a woman who has been sent to the underworld.[5]
Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century. It became much more prevalent during the Edo period, especially among the peasant class, who were hit hardest by the recurrent famines and high taxation of the age.[11] Statues of the Boddhisattva Jizo, erected in memory of an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or young childhood death, began appearing at least as early as 1710 at a temple in Yokohama (see religion and abortion).[12]
The native Māori people of New Zealand colonisation terminated pregnancies via miscarriage-inducing drugs, ceremonial methods, and girding of the abdomen with a restrictive belt.[13] Another source claims that the Māori people did not practice abortion, for fear of Makutu, but did attempt abortion through the artificial induction of premature labor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion