Sanctity of Life Quotes

Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday so I wanted to share some quotes from the early Christians Church on the subject of abortion and life:

1. You shall not kill the child by obtaining an abortion. Nor, again, shall you destroy him after he is born (Barnabas, 70-130).
2. You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one who has been born (Didache, 80-140).
3. We say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder (Athenagoras, 175).
4. Murder is once for all forbidden. Therefore, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb...To hinder a birth is merely a speedier way to kill a human. It makes no difference whether you take away a life that has been born or destroy one that is not yet born (Tertullian, 197).
5. Among surgeons' tools there is a certain instrument that is formed with a nicely adjusted flexible frame for the first of all opening the uterus and then keeping it open. It also has a circular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected with careful, but unflinching care. its last appendage is a blunted or covered hook, by which the entire fetus is extracted by violent delivery. There is also a copper needle or spike, by which that actual death is brought in this treacherous robbery of life. From its infanticide function, they give it the name, "killer of the infant"- which infant, of course, had once been alive (Tertullian, 210).
6. The Law of Moses punishes with appropriate penalties the person who causes abortion. For there already exists the beginning stages of a human being. And even at this stage, the fetus is already acknowledged with having the condition of life and death, since he is already susceptible to both (Tertullian, 210).
7. Are you to dissolve the conception by aid of drugs? I believe it is no more lawful to hurt a child in process of birth than to hurt one who is already born (Tertullian, 212).
8. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels. So they commit murder before they bring forth (Mark Felix, 200).
9. Women who were reputed believers began to resort to drugs for producing sterility. They also girded themselves around, so as to expel what was being conceived...See what a great impiety the lawless one has advanced! (Hippolytus, 225)
10. The womb of his wife was hit by a blow of his heel. And, in the miscarriage that soon followed, the offspring was brought forth, the fruit of a father's murder (Cyprian, 250).
11. If anyone is unable to bring up children because of poverty, it is better to abstain from marriage than to mar the work of God with wicked hands (Lactantius, 304-313).
12. You shall not slay your child by causing abortion, nor kill the baby that is born. For everything that is shaped and has received a soul from God, if it is slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed (Apostolic Constitutions, compiled 390).