The burden of supporting those unable to support themselves has been keenly felt in all ages and among all peoples.
The ancients realized the danger and the burden, but found no difficulty when the stress became acute in enacting that all infants should be examined and the defective despatched.
To come nearer home, Boeltius tells us, that, "in old times when a Scot was affected with any hereditary disease their sons were emasculated, their daughters banished, and if any female affected with such disease were pregnant, she was to be burned alive." Aristotle declared (Politics Book II, p.

40) that "neglect of this subject is a never failing cause of poverty, and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime," and he advocated habitual abortion as one remedy against over-population.

The combined wisdom of the Greeks found no better method of keeping population well within the limits of the State's power to support its members than abortion, and the exposure of infants.
Since Aristotle's time abortion has been largely practised by civilized nations.

Mutilation and infibulation of females have been practised by savages with the same end in view, while vasectomy, orchotomy, and ovariotomy, have had their avowed advocates in our own time.
The purpose of all these measures was to limit population with little or no distinction as to fitness to survive.

The Spartans in ancient times, and many social reformers of to-day have discussed and advocated the artificial limitation of the unfit.