in Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published in 1487 as a witch-hunting manual in Germany. Currently, the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches oppose abortion from conception. Evangelical Protestant and some mainline Protestant churches oppose abortion in varying degrees, while other mainline Protestant churches favoralso in varying degreespermitting the practice. In Judaism From a Jewish perspective from biblical times, abortion is considered from a social perspective more than from a theological perspective. The mother's life is considered as a priority. Modern era Criminalization 19th-century medicine saw tremendous advances in the fields of surgery, anaesthesia, and sanitation. Social attitudes towards abortion shifted in the context of a backlash against the women's rights movement. Abortion had previously been widely practiced and legal under common law in early pregnancy (until quickening), and it was not until the 19th century that the English-speaking world passed laws against abortion at all stages of pregnancy. There were a number of factors that contributed to this shift in opinion about abortion in the early 19th century. In the United States, where physicians were the leading advocates of abortion criminalization laws, some of them argued that advances in medical knowledge showed that quickening was neither more nor less crucial in the process of gestation than any other step, and thus if one opposes abortion after quickening, one should oppose it before quickening as well. Practical reasons also influenced the medical field to impose anti-abortion laws. For one, abortion providers tended to be untrained and not members of medical societies. In an age where the leading doctors in the nation were attempting to standardize the medical profession, these "irregulars" were considered a nuisance to public health. The "irregulars" were also disliked by the more formalized medical profession because they were competition, and often cheap competition. Though the physicians' campaign against abortion began in the early 1800s, little change was made in the United States until after the Civil War. The English law on abortion was first codified in legislation under sections 1 and 2 of Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803. The Bill was proposed by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough to clarify the law relating to abortion and was the first law to explicitly outlaw it. The Act provided that it was an offence for any person to perform or cause an abortion. The punishment for performing or attempting