"If Christians had in fact practiced expositio to any great degree, this would have been so well-known in local society that the apologists’ argument would have been completely implausible; and the fact that the exposure of children does not feature in polemic within the church indicates, to the very least, that this was not very widespread practice. No source in the time before Constantine tells us that Christians practiced the exposure of children. This does not allow us to infer that it never happened, but it suggests that it was a rare occurrence. The situation with regard to abortion was somewhat different. Abortion is more hidden, and this means that it can be employed by the apologists without there being any necessary agreement between the text and the societal reality. And, in fact, we possess Christian texts addressing members of the church from the first half of the third century that indicate that Christians did practice abortion."