1699 Edict on Reproductive Health

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The Edict Concerning Reproductive Health in the Benacian Union was passed by the Congress of Chryse on 23.XI.1699 AN, receiving the assent of the High Presidium of the Benacian Union on the same day. The Edict was promulgated on 24.XII.1699 AN through publication in the fourth edition of the Gazette of the Chryse Chronicle.

Purpose of the Edict

• Prohibition on state and guild hospitals and clinics performing vasectomies or giving out contraceptives to subjects;
• Prohibition on all forms of abortion except in instances of evident disability in the foetus or instances that occasion the physical endangerment of the prospective mother's life;
• 100,000 Benacian sovereigns fine levied upon any subject engaged in the unsanctioned termination of their own pregnancy, either to be paid immediately in full, or to be redeemed in the form of bonded service and the bringing to term of four replacement pregnancies;
• Exceptions, authorised by the Magister-Carnifex for the prospective mother's bailiwick of residency, could be made in the following instances:
  • for women over 45;
  • for women who had already borne four children;
  • for women, as previously noted, whose life would be threatened by carrying to term, due to medical complications;
  • women who were pregnant through rape and/or incest;
• Gynaecologists, in state and guild service, were instructed to monitor their patients and to report efforts at circumvention to the Magister-Carnifex of their bailiwick;
• Any clinical professional discovered to be undertaking or facilitating unauthorised abortions would be transferred to the Benacian Labour Reserve for a twenty-year period of mandated service without parole.
• Bailiwicks obligated to organise orphanages and foundling hospitals as part of their provision for the Lawful Poor.