According to medieval common law, assault against a pregnant woman
causing miscarriage after the fi rst trimester was homicide. Some scholars
have argued, however, that in practice English jurors refused to acknowledge
assaults of this nature as homicide. The underlying argument is
that because abortion by assault is a crime against women, male jurors
were loath to impose the death penalty. A reexamination of the material
notes that while conviction rates for assault on pregnant women were
low, the English believed such assaults were felonies. Moreover, the role
played by husbands as plaintiffs makes it clear that this was not merely
a women’s issue. Abortion by assault was never an easy judgment for
jurors to deliver. In particular, the medical expertise required to pass
judgment on such a case presented jurors with difficulties that may have
prevented conviction of abortion by assault in many cases.