The “Foetus” Is a Person—Athenagoras (c. 133 – c. 190)
From the admonishments of the early Church Fathers, it is obvious from second-century ecclesiastical writings that abortion was a common practice by many in the ancient cultures of the world. Athenagoras, one of the Church Fathers, forbade the practice by any means and was one of the first to actually use the term “foetus” in public preaching.
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 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.1
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Athenagoras, "A Plea for the Christians," in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1956), 147. In other translations see: Chapter 35. |