I am currently reading The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark which details some of the factors about why Christianity grew so quickly in the Greco-Roman Empire. One of the reasons noted is that Christians valued life and marriage much more so then non-Christians at the time. Infanticide, condoned by Plato and Aristotle as acceptable practices (p.118) was completely ruled out as a viable Christian practice. Still, discarding unwanted babies was very common even up to the 6^th century A.D. Stark quotes Lawrence Stager who while excavating an ancient villa said

“The sewer had been clogged and when we excavated and dry-sieved the desiccated sewage, we found bones…of nearly 100 little babies apparently murdered and thrown into the sewer.”

It was therefore interesting to read this article about the discovery of placentas in an Illinois sewer system. Are we becoming more like Ancient Greeks and Romans? Is that a good thing in this case?