Abortion

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. Exodus 21:22-23

And the second commandment of the Teaching; you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. Didache (A.D. 80-140) ch. 2

They marry like all other men and they beget children; but they do not cast away their offspring. Letter to Diognetus (A.D. 125-200) ch. 5

But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. Justin Martyr (A.D.160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 pg. 172

And again [we fear to expose children], lest some of them be not picked up, but die, and we become murderers. But whether we marry, it is only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we live continently. Justin Martyr (A.D. 160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 pg. 172

And when 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. Athenagoras (A.D. 137) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.147

And though maintaining parrots and curlews, they do not receive the orphan child; but they expose children that are born at home, and take up the young of birds, and prefer irrational to rational creatures. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.279

How many even of your rulers, notable for their justice to you and for their severe measures against us, may I charge in their own consciences with the sin of putting their offspring to death? As to any difference in the kind of murder, it is certainly the more cruel way to kill by drowning, or by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs…our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one.Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg.25

But then you make away with them in a more cruel manner, because you expose them to the cold and hunger, and to wild beasts, or else you get rid of them by the slower death of drowning. Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg. 123-124

 

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