Athenagoras (d.177)
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 and object of God's care [and then kill it]….But we are altogether
consistent in our conduct. We obey reason and do not override it.
-Legatio 35
How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and
pollution, can we put people to death? 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 s for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does
not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus 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. But we are in all things always alike and the same, submitting
ourselves to reason, and not ruling over it.
-A Plea for the Christians 35.4
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