Head-dibs

374 AD, Basil the Great: "Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (First Canonical Letter, canon 2). "He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it die upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" (First Canonical Letter, canon 8). 391 AD, John Chrysostom: "Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?--where there are many efforts at abortion?--where there is murder before the birth? For even th...

74 AD, The Letter of Barnabas: “The way of light, then, is as follows: If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way is the following: Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion: nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.” 137 AD, The Apocalypse of Peter: “And near that place I saw another strait place into which the gore and the filth of those who were being punished ran down and became there as it were a lake: and there sat women having the gore up to their necks, and over against them sat many children who were born to them out of due time, crying; and there came forth from them sparks of fire and smote the women in the eyes: and these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion.” 150 AD, Didache: “The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commi...

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 ...

My shining feet will never run on early morning lawn; My feet were crushed before they had a chance to greet the dawn. My fingers now will never stretch to touch the winning tape; My race was done before I learned the smallest steps to take. My growing height will never be recorded on the wall; My growth was stopped when I was still unseen, and very small. My lips and tongue will never taste the good fruits of the earth; For I myself was judged to be a fruit of little worth. My eyes will never scan the sky for my high—flying kite; For when still blind, destroyed were they in the black womb of night. I’ll never stand upon a hill, Spring’s winds in my hair; Aborted winds of thought closed in on Motherhood’s despair. I’ll never walk the shores of life or know the tides of time; For I was coming but unloved, and that my only crime. Nameless am I, a grain of sand, one of the countless dead; But the deed that made me ashen grey floats on seas of red. (Fay Clayton, Christian Crusade Weekly, J...