Miracle stories from the early Middle Ages include some accounts of saints who could successfully induce abortions. One such legend is from a seventh-century book of the life and miracles of the Irish St. Brigid of Kildare, who was said to have died around 525 CE. In the story, a woman had sex for pleasure but became pregnant. Whereby, the account goes, “Brigid, exercising the most potent strength of her ineffable faith, blessed her, causing the fetus to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain . . .”
