Abortion in History (part 1)

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Athenagoras (177 AD) wrote in "A Plea for the Christians" the following:

“What man of sound mind, therefore will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it: and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand when it has been reared to destroy it . . . .

What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers and will have to give account of it to God? For the same person would not regard the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore an object of God’s care, and at the same time slay it once it had come to life.”

(A Plea for the Christians 35. Embassy chap. 5).

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