According to the apostle Paul, Eve's sin led to the fall; but she would be saved by childbearing. The author of a sixth-century biblical commentary thought carefully about the implications of Paul's words: ‘But she will be saved by generation of children. Not Eve, but woman: because Eve was used as an example, it was not being said specifically about her, through generation of children, by rearing, not by killing or aborting.’ The good works of the righteous widow, Paul went on to write, included bringing up children. Again, concern over abortion entered the author's mind as he interpreted Paul's words: ‘If she brought up children, if she brought up those born, and not by receiving abortion, nor has she killed [children] already born.’

Our commentator was not alone in considering abortion as an obstacle to salvation. A Carolingian poem probably from the late ninth century commemorated a Merovingian bishop who had once saved a soul by thwarting an abortion. Many early medieval bishops acted on abortion from the pulpit or council chamber, but Germanus of Paris (d. 576) had acted from his mother's womb:

Childbearing was one path to salvation in early medieval Christianity. Monasticism offered a different path defined by the renunciation of sexuality and its consequences, including childbearing.