The Facts of Life: An Authoritative Guide to Life and Family Issues

Description

cf. the 1997, 1st ed.

PDF pp. 263ff. are on the abortion pill (RU-486); PDF pp. 268-9 are on how the anti"-hormone" RU-486 tricks the body into thinking it has progesterone (by "plugging-in" to progesterone receptors), thus simultaneously starving the pregnancy of it by tricking the body not to create more progesterone.

How did Christians respond to abortion in the early Church?

Since apostolic times the Church has been opposed to abortion and contraception.

The following sources from the early Church are given in Brian Clowes's Facts of Life (2nd ed.) PDF pp. 866-7. I've included quotes for the more famous authors; Clowes includes quotes from some of the others.

• The Apocalypse of Peter.
• Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontius and theologian (died 236), Refutation of All Heresies , 9.7.
• Origen, theologian of Alexandria (185-254), Against Heresies , page 9.
• Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (c. 200-258), Letters , page 48.
• Methodius, Bishop of Olympus (died 311).
• Council of Elvira in Granada, Spain (305), Canons, 63 and 68.
• Council of Ancyra in Galatia, Asia Minor (314), Canon, 21.
• Ephraem the Syrian, theologian (306-373), De Timore Dei , page 10.
• Ephipanius, Bishop of Salamis (c. 315-403).
• St. Basil the Great, priest (c. 329-379), Letters , 188.2, 8. [First Canonical Letter , from the work Three Canonical Letters. Canons 2 and 8. Loeb Classical Library, Volume III, pages 20 to 23.]

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.

The hairsplitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us. Whoever deliberately commits abortion is subject to the penalty for homicide. … Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.

* St. Basil's account here is reminiscent of [Exodus 21:22](http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drl&bk=2&ch=21&l=22-#x), the earliest biblical record against abortion: "If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman's husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award."

• St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (c. 339-397), Hexameron, 5.18.58 [PDF pp. 220-1].

Men should learn to love their children. … the females of our species quickly give up nursing even those they love or, if they belong to the wealthier class, disdain the act of nursing. Those who are very poor expose their infants and refuse to lay claim to them when they are discovered. Even the wealthy, in order that their inheritance may not be divided among several, deny in the very womb their own progeny. By the use of parricidal mixtures they snuff out the fruit of their wombs in the genital organs themselves. In this way life is taken away before it is given.

• Apostolic Constitutions (late Fourth Century)
• St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430), Enchiridion , page 86. [On Marriage and Concupiscence , 1.17.]

Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or, if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born. Well, if both parties alike are so flagitious, they are not husband and wife; and if such were their character from the beginning, they have not come together by wedlock but by debauchery. But if the two are not alike in such sin, I boldly declare either that the woman is, so to say, the husband's harlot; or the man the wife's adulterer.

• St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople (c. 347-407), Homily 24 ("On The Book of Romans")

Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication … Why sow where the ground makes its care to destroy the fruit? — where there are many efforts at abortion? — where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine.

• St. Jerome (died in 420) [Letter to Eustochium, 22.13.]

I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the church, their mother … Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder.

• Council of Chalcedon (451)
• Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (470-543), Sermons , 1.12.
• Council of Lerida (524).
• Second Council of Braga (527), Canons, 77.
• St. Martin of Braga (580)
• Consillium Quinisextum (692).

When the Roman empire fell, the rich Romans fled to the countryside, leaving the Christians in Rome. The Christians were known to adopt abandoned children, and this is one way that Christians help rebuild Rome.