Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Quickening" in English language version.
Dellapenna's book is a recent example of analysis which distorts the evidence to press an absolutist position about the legal history, ignoring context and culture to do so. Bypassing the importance of intellectual and social history to an understanding of the law, Dellapenna himself falsifies the record...As the debates over this issue have shown, both sides can muster evidence:there is case law—albeit very little—that seems to classify abortion as murder without reference to stages of fetal development, and there are cases and other material which seem to regard abortion as less serious, some appearing to disregard it altogether. Part of the reason for this very real confusion is that medieval and early modern England did not have a single unified legal system, though one was evolving: law was still partly related to local custom and could vary from place to place; multiple court systems were in play; ecclesiastical law and common law had contested and at times overlapping jurisdiction. at the level of enforcement—often this is all the records show us—officers of the law were "often partisan or highly erratic in their performance". These factors make it difficult to establish the conclusive answers each side in the modern abortion debate seeks.
