27 MAY 2006, Page 32

Roman contraception

From Suzan Smith

Sir: Sir Cliff Richard (‘It seemed to me that Tony was suffering’, 13 May) states that Jesus ‘obviously never got into contraception, because it did not then happen’. In fact, both contraception and abortion ‘happened’ at that time. Pliny in his Natural History (29.27.85) writes of one supposed method of contraception.

Soranus, who wrote a treatise on gynaecology in the 2nd century AD, describes both contraception and abortion (1.60.4, 1.61.1–3 and 1.64.1–2, 1.65.1–7), and Ovid in his Amores (2.14.5–10ff) speaks of his feelings about the abortion which his lover, it seems, is about to procure.

Suzan Smith Harrogate, Yorkshire