"a kind of dreadful logic"

Ovid's facility with myth is evident in everything he wrote. Here in a poem that Planned Parenthood would not have approved of, he alludes to Medea and Procne as he argues against the practice of abortion:

                  ...The world condemns
the woman of Colchis, spattered with the blood of her young sons,
and mourns for Procne's victim, poor Itys.
Horrible mothers! But at least a kind of dreadful logic moved them
to spill, from their sons' throats, their husbands' blood -
Tell me, in your case, where's the Tereus or Jason that could compel you
to move your outraged hand against yourself?

The entire text of Amores 2.14 can be found here in a good translation by Diane Arnson Svarlien. More here,  and also in print.