(Unherd) – As the historian Nadya Williams has shown, Greece and Rome offer proof that the parental quest for quality control over offspring is anything but new. Indeed, the popular stories of the era vigorously affirmed such practices. From Thetis dipping Achilles into the river Styx to render him invulnerable, to Hera throwing her newborn baby, Hephaestus, off Mount Olympus because he was so ugly and deformed — ancient pagans were taught by their culture to pursue biological optimization. In the realm of philosophy, thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca lent moral support to parents’ refusal to raise newborns with disabilities.

These mythic and philosophical teachings informed concrete social practices. The Spartans discarded sickly babies unlikely to grow into strong warriors. Roman fathers regularly invoked the right of paterfamilias to decide whether or not to welcome a newborn child into the family.

Yet this would all change as the ancient world was transfigured by Christianity, a faith which insisted that these little children, as the least among us, bore the holy face of Christ in a special way. (Read More)