Posted on 12/07/2002 11:13:10 AM PST by HumanaeVitae
The Sanctification of Human Life
from Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization by Dr. Alvin Schmidt
"I have come that they may have life." Jesus Christ in John 10:10
When in Rome, do as the Romans do." So goes an old saying. But when the early Christians arrived in Rome from Jerusalem and parts of Asia Minor, they did not do as the pagan Romans did. They defied the entire system of Rome's morality. The low view of human life among the Romans was one of their pagan depravities: "The individual was regarded as of value only if he was a part of the political fabric and able to contribute to its uses, as though it were the end of his being to aggrandize the State."1 Moreover, the pagan gods taught the people no morals, as St. Augustine, a former pagan himself, knew from personal experience (The City of God 2.4). This too did not enhance the value of human life.
The low value of life among the Romans was a shocking affront to the early Christians, who came to Rome with an exalted view of human life. Like their Jewish ancestors, they saw human beings as the crown of God's creation; they believed that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Although that image was tarnished by man's fall into sin, they nevertheless believed the words of the psalmist to be true: "You made him [man} a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:5). They also knew that God so honored human life that he himself assumed it by becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son (John 1:14). Thus, unlike the Romans, Christians did not hold human life to be cheap and expendable. It was to be honored and protected at all costs, regardless of its form or quality. By doing so, they countered many depravities that depreciated human life.
COUNTERING THE DEPRAVITY OF INFANTICIDE
One way that Christianity underscored the sanctity of human life was its consistent and active opposition to the widespread pagan practice of infanticide - killing newborn infants, usually soon after birth. Frederic Farrar has noted that "infanticide was infamously universal" among the Greeks and Romans during the early years of Christianity. 2 Infants were killed for various reasons. Those born deformed or physically frail were especially prone to being willfully killed, often by drowning. Some were killed more brutally. For instance, Plutarch (ca. A.D. 46 - 120) mentions the Carthaginians, who, he says, "offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan" (Moralia 2.171D). Cicero (106 - 43 B.C.) justified infanticide, at least for the deformed, by citing the ancient Twelve Tables of Roman law when he says that "deformed infants shall be killed" (De Legibus 3.8). Even Seneca (4 B.C.? - A.D. 65), whose moral philosophy was on a higher plane than that of his culture, said, "We drown children who at birth are weakly and abnormal" (De Ira 1.15). So common was infanticide that Polybius (205? - 118 B.C.) blamed the population decline of ancient Greece on it (Histories 6). Large families were rare in Greco-Roman society in part because of infanticide. 3 Infant girls were especially vulnerable. For instance, in ancient Greece it was rare for even a wealthy family to raise more than one daughter. An inscription at Delphi reveals that one second-century sample of six hundred families had only one percent who raised two daughters. 4
Historical research shows that infanticide was common not only in the Greco-Roman culture but in many other cultures of the world as well. Susan Scrimshaw notes that it was common in India, China, Japan, and the Brazilian jungles as well as among the Eskimos. 5 Writing in the 1890s, James Dennis shows in his Social Evils of the Non-Christian World that infanticide was also practiced in many parts of pagan Africa. He further states that infanticide was also "well known among the Indians of North and South America," 6 that is, before the European settlers, who reflected Christian values, outlawed it.
As with abortion (discussed below), the early Christians called the Greco-Roman practice of infanticide murder. To them infants were creatures of God, redeemed by Christ. Moreover, they knew of Christ's high regard for little children, for he once said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them" (Matthew 19:14). He spoke these words in response to his disciples, who thought he should not be bothered with people bringing small children to him. Having been reared as Jews, who saw children as a blessing, the disciples oddly enough reflected an opinion of children that was inconsistent with their Jewish heritage. One wonders whether the prevailing Greco-Roman culture's low view of children had to some degree influenced the disciples' remarks.
Early Christian literature repeatedly condemned infanticide. The Didache (written between ca. 85 and 110) enjoins Christians, "[T]hou shalt not. . . commit infanticide." 7 One finds infanticide also condemned in the Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 130) as it comments on the Didache's opposition to this immoral practice. 8 Callistus of Rome (d. ca. 222), a onetime slave who later became bishop of Rome, was equally appalled at this common method of disposing of unwanted infants.
The Christian opposition to infanticide was not only prompted by their seeking to honor one of God's commandments, "You shall not kill [murder]," but also by their remembering St. Paul's words, written to them in Rome shortly before Nero had him executed: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this 'world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2). There was no way that they would conform to the ungodly practice of infanticide; to do so would have violated their belief in sanctity of human life.
"Infanticide," said the highly regarded historian W. E. H. Lecky, "was one of the deepest stains of the ancient civilizations." 9 It was this moral practice that the early Christians continually opposed wherever they encountered it. And it was this depravity that they sought to eliminate. Before the Edict of Milan in 313, Christian opposition to infanticide obviously was not able to influence the pagan emperors to outlaw it. But only a half century after Christianity attained legal status, Valentinian, a Christian emperor who was sufficiently influenced by Bishop Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia, formally outlawed infanticide in 374 (Codex Theodosius 9.41.1). He was the first Roman emperor to do so.
Total elimination of infanticide never became a reality, however, largely because not everyone converted to Christianity and because some who joined the church were only nominal Christians who still retained some pagan values and did not take seriously the church's stand on infanticide. Thus, evidence show's that many unwanted infants in many parts of Europe in the Middle Ages and after continued to have their lives snuffed out by their parents. But throughout the centuries the Christian church never wavered in its condemnation of infanticide. And as geographical states developed on the continent of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Christian influence that prompted Valentinian to outlaw the killing of infants became the norm throughout the West, and anti-infanticide laws (with the exception of today's partial-birth abortion) remain in effect in much of the world today. It is one of Christianity's great legacies.
COUNTERING THE DEPRAVITY OF ABANDONING INFANTS
When the Christians arrived in Rome and its vicinity, they encountered another culturally depraved practice that showed its low regard for human life. If unwanted infants in the Greco-Roman world were not directly killed, they were frequently abandoned - tossed away, so to speak. In the city of Rome, for instance, undesirable infants were abandoned at the base of the Columna Lactaria, 10 so named because this was the place the state provided for wet nurses to feed some of the abandoned children. Child abandonment had even become a part of Roman mythology. The city of Rome, according to mythology, was reputedly founded by Romulus and Remus, two infant boys who had been tossed into the Tiber River in the eighth century B.C. They both survived and were reportedly reared by wolves. This mythological account is one of many that reveal the Roman practice of abandoning undesired children, or exposti, as they were called.
Sometimes, according to Suetonius (A.D. ca. 69 - ca. 140), the biographer of Roman caesars, infants were also abandoned in a symbolic ritual of grief, for instance, when people in A.D. 41 grieved the assassination of Emperor Caligula. 11 This supports the observation that "the 'exposure' of children was a part of the standard litany of Roman depravities." 12
The Greeks too practiced child abandonment. Like the Romans, they had their cultural myths that related tales of child exposure. For instance, the well-known Greek play Oedipus Rex revolves around Oedipus, who, abandoned as a three-day-old infant by his father King Laius of Thebes, was found by a shepherd of King Polybus of Corinth and his wife Merope, who reared the boy. Similarly, Ion, the founder of lonia, was abandoned as an infant by his mother, as were other noteworthy Greek characters, such as Poseidon, Aesculapius, and Hephaistos, according to ancient literature. Greek mythology also depicts Paris, who started the Trojan War, as an abandoned child. And Euripides, Greek poet of the fifth century B.C., mentions infants being thrown into rivers and manure piles, exposed on roadsides, and given for prey to birds and beasts. 13 In Sparta when a child was born, it was taken before the elders of the tribe, and they decided whether the child would be kept or abandoned. 14
In neither Greek nor Roman literature can one find any feelings of guilt related to abandoning children. One could argue that there might have been at least a scintilla of subconscious guilt, however, for many of the Greco-Roman stage plays and mythologies revolve around famous characters and heroes who were abandoned as children. These plays may unwittingly have soothed guilty consciences in that they permitted the audience to infer that their abandoned children really did not die but instead became cultural heroes.
As with infanticide, Christians opposed and condemned the culturally imbedded custom of child abandonment. Clement of Alexandria, a highly influential church father in Egypt in the latter part of the second century, condemned the Romans for saving and protecting young birds and other creatures while lacking moral compunctions about abandoning their own children. 15 Similarly, the African church father Tertullian (ca. 200) strongly denounced this practice. 16 Lactantius, the church father who tutored one of the sons of Constantine the Great, opposed child abandonment, saying, "It is as wicked to expose as it is to kill" (Divine Institutes 1.6). A sixth-century canon of the church called parents who abandoned children "murderers" (Patri Graeco-Latina 88:1933).
Christians, however, did more than just condemn child abandonment. They frequently took such human castaways into their homes and adopted them. Callistus of Rome gave refuge to abandoned children by placing them in Christian homes. Benignus of Dijon (late second century), who like his spiritual mentor Polycarp was martyred, provided protection and nourishment for abandoned children, some of whom were deformed as a result of failed abortions. Afra of Augsburg (late third century) was a prostitute in her pagan life, but after her conversion to Christianity she "developed a ministry to abandoned children of prisoners, thieves, smugglers, pirates, runaway slaves, and brigands." 17 Christian writings are replete with examples of Christians adopting throw-away children.
In spite of the many severe persecutions that Christians endured for three centuries, they did not relent in promoting the sanctity of human life. They saw child abandonment as a form of murder, and their tenacious efforts eventually produced results. When Emperor Valentinian outlawed infanticide in 374, he also criminalized child abandonment (Code of Justinian 8.52.2). Following him, Honorius and Theodosius II (both emperors in the fifth century) ruled that a foundling child had to be announced to people in the church, and if no one claimed it, the finder could keep it. 18 By the eleventh century, King Haroldsson (St. Olaf) of Norway fined parents who exposed a child; his successor, King Magnus, tightened the exposure law by charging such parents with murder. 19
Although laws were enacted outlawing child abandonment in much of Europe, where Christianity was prominent, the practice did not come to a complete end. As with infanticide, many people did not internaiize the moral and ethical teachings of Christianity. As Jesus said in one of his parables, some seed falls on good ground, some on stones, and some among thorns (Matthew 13:3 - 9). The "thorns" in the early church were those who never really converted to Christianity. Some joined the church, especially after the persecutions ended, because it was socially or materially advantageous. They had not really disavowed the pagan customs. Hence, one account in the sixteenth century reveals a priest lamenting that "the latrines resound with the cries of children who had been plunged into them." 20
The Christian opposition to child abandonment, which resulted in laws outlawing this practice throughout Europe, along with outlawing infanticide, had the wholesome effect of morally and legally ascribing to newborn infants the sanctity of life. That sanctity is in part atrophying today as many people support abortion on demand and even favor partial-birth abortion (the modern way of practicing infanticide).
Yet some of Christianity's high accent on human life is still operative even among the advocates of partial-birth abortions, because they believe that abandoning an unwanted child in a back alley or in a garbage can is a heinously criminal act. But apparently the belief in the sanctity of human life of newborn children is changing, as indicated by the recent rise in the abandonment of newborn infants in parts of the Western world. The city of Hamburg, Germany, recently established "Project Findelbaby" for foundling babies by providing a "baby flap" (resembling a large mailbox slot) at some buildings where unwanted infants may be dropped off without legal jeopardy. 21 The problem is not confined to Germany. In the United States, billboards along highways in Texas have recently posted the plea: "Don't Abandon Your Baby." 22 And in the spring of 2000, seventy-two state legislatures in the United States were seriously thinking about imitating the Hamburg practice.
However unfortunate the present-day baby-flap boxes might be, they ironically reflect Christianity's influence with regard to saving the life of abandoned infants. Rescuing infants in this manner is in part a revival of what the Christian church did in the Middle Ages. In the ninth century the Council of Rouen (France) asked women who had "secretly borne children to place them at the door of the church and provided for them if they were not reclaimed." 23
COUNTERING THE DEPRAVITY OF ABORTION
The low view of human life among the Greco-Romans also showed itself in widespread abortion practices. Ignoring this factor, historians and anthropologists tend to cite poverty or food shortage as the primary reason for their prevalence. However, historical data indicate that poverty was not the primary cause for the high abortion rates among the Romans in the century preceding and during the early Christian era. At this time in history the Roman honor and respect for marriage had virtually become extinct (see chapter 4). Roman "marriage, deprived of all moral character," as one historian has noted, "was no longer a sacred bond, and alliance of souls." 24 Juvenal apparently was not exaggeratirig when he said that a chaste wife was almost nonexistent (Satire 6.161). And Seneca, the Roman moralist, called unchastity "the greatest evil of our time" (De Consolatione ad Helviam 15.3). In light of this pronounced deterioration of marriage, countless Roman women engaged in adulterous sex, and when they became pregnant, they destroyed the evidence of their sexual indiscretions, thus adding to Rome's widespread abortions.
There was still another Roman motive - a rather unusual one - for aborting pregnancies, namely, the desire to be childless. Seneca said, "Childlessness bestows more influence than it takes away, and the loneliness that used to be a detriment to old age, now leads to so much power that some old men pretend to hate their sons and disown their children, and by their act make themselves childless" (De Consolatione ad Marciam 19.2). Why? Unmarried or childless persons were assiduously courted and given undue attention by fortune hunters who hoped to cash in on their "friends" wills. Historian Will Durant says that "a large number of Romans relished this esurient courtesy" 25 So pronounced was this phenomenon that the Roman poet Horace (65 - 8 B.C.) showed his contempt by satirically telling would-be fortune hunters how to be successful in their pursuit of childless couples (Satires 2.5). Thus, a ghoulish desire for other people's fortunes added to the prolificacy of Rome's abortions.
Long before the birth of Christ, faithful Jews, contrary to the pagan societies around them, held to the sanctity of human life, including life in the womb. Flavius Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, said that the biblical law (the Pentateuch) "forbids women from either to cause abortion or to make away with the fetus." He further stated that a woman who aborts her child "destroys a soul and diminishes the race." 26 First-century Christians, being predominantly former Jews, similarly valued human life in the womb.
The popular Greco-Roman view, however, was remarkably different. Human life (as noted above) was cheap and expendable, particularly the life of the unborn. Long before the birth of Christ, some of the philosophers - such as Plato, Aristotle, Celsus, and others well into the fourth century after Christ - had no compunctions about taking the life of an unborn child. Plato argued that it was the prerogative of the city-state to have a woman submit to an abortion so that the state would not become too populous (Republic 5.461). Similarly, Aristotle, once a student of Plato, contended that there was a "limit fixed to the procreation of offspring," and when that limit was not heeded, "abortion must be practiced" (Politics 7.14).
The opinions of Plato and Aristotle and others like them prevailed among the people in ancient Greece. To be sure, there were some opposing views. For example, as early as the fifth century B.C. the Pythagoreans frowned upon free and easy abortions, as did the Greek physician Galen (137 - 200) and the gynecologist Soranus of Ephesus (ca. 98 - 138). Similarly, the Hippocratic Oath of the fifth century B.C. said, "I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion." 27 These opposing positions, however, carried little or no weight among the general populace or its political leaders, no matter who uttered them.
The Romans essentially followed the Greeks. Abortion was common and widespread among them too. There was some opposition, but it also meant little or nothing because the Roman populace had an extremely low view of human life. Moreover, the few who saw abortion as wrong usually did so on pragmatic grounds rather than for moral reasons. Thus, the verbally eloquent Cicero (106 - 43 B.C.) argued that abortion was wrong because it threatened to destroy the family's name and its right of inheritance; it was an offense against the father (pater) and it deprived the Republic of a future citizen. 28 Another opposing voice was that of the Roman philosopher-statesman Seneca, a onetime teacher of Emperor Nero. The well-known Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 17) said in his Amores that women who had abortions were worthy of death. 29 And the Roman writer Juvenal (ca. A.D. 60 - 140) said the abortionist was "paid to murder mankind within the womb" (Satires 7).
While a few poets and philosophers opposed abortion, the Roman populace received adequate support from its morally decadent culture and from its morally depraved emperors, who had no qualms about taking human life - young or old, prenatal or postnatal. Emperor Tiberius, who ruled from A.D. 14 to 37, and under whose reign Christ was crucified, loved to see tortured humans thrown into the sea. Emperor Caligula (A.D. 37 - 41), the crazed tyrant who succeeded Tiberius, arbitrarily killed all who once served in his palace. He enjoyed seeing human beings dragged through the streets with their bowels hanging out, and he forced parents to witness the executions of their sons. Claudius, the successor of Caligula, treasured seeing the blood and gore of men brutally disemboweled in the Colosseum. Nero (A.D. 54 - 68), who severely persecuted and executed hundreds of Christians and who had St. Paul and St. Peter executed, forced Seneca, his former teacher, to commit suicide. Emperor Vitellius, a successor to Nero, who ruled only for one year, said that the smell of dead enemy soldiers was sweet, and the death of fellow citizens sweeter yet. Emperor Domitian (A.D. 81 - 96) killed four vestal virgins, executed senators who opposed his policies, and killed his niece's husband. 30 And as shown in chapter 1, he severely persecuted Christians during his rule of terror. Bloody acts of other emperors could also be cited. Given this culture of killing, abortion was by no means an anomaly in the eyes of the populace.
Some have argued that the Bible nowhere specifically prohibits abortion. However, there are at least two biblical references that cast considerable doubt on this argument. Writing to the Christians in Galatia about A.D. 55, St. Paul issued a catalogue of sins (Galatlans 5:20). One of the sins mentioned is pharmakeia, the making and administering of potions. This word has commonly been translated as "sorcery" (NRSV) or "witchcraft"(NIV) because potions were often made in a context of sorcery. However, it is quite likely that when Paul used the word pharmakeia in Galatians, he meant the practice of abortion, because administering medicinal potions was a common way of inducing abortions among the Greco-Romans. There is additional evidence in the New Testament in support of this argument. In Revelation 21:8, where the Apostle John condemns "sexual immorality," these two words are immediately followed by the plural word pharmakois, evidently because sexual immorality often resulted in unwanted pregnancies being aborted.
That pharmakeia (pharmakon), as used by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians and St. John in the book of Revelation, apparently refers to the practice of abortion has added support in extrabiblical literature, both pagan and Christian. Plutarch (A.D. 46 - 120), a pagan, uses pharmakeia to note that it was especially used for contraception and abortion purposes (Romulus 22 of his Parallel Lives). An early Christian document, the Didache, says that abortion is forbidden, and in so arguing, it uses the words ou pharmakeuseis (you shall not use potions). These words are immediately followed by "ou pharmakeuseis teknon en phthora" (you shall not kill a child by abortion). 31 Thus, this passage seems to link potions (drugs) with the killing of an unborn child. Clement of Alexandria (155 - 215), an early influential church father, identifies pharrnakeia as an abortifacient. In criticizing women who conceal their sexual sin, he links abortion (phthora) with the taking of potions (pharrnakois). 32 About the same time (around 190), Minucius Felix, a Christian lawyer, declared, "There are women who, by medicinal draughts, extinguish in the womb and commit infanticide upon the offspring yet unborn." 33 About two hundred years later (in 375), Bishop Ambrose wrote that potions were used by well-to-do women to snuff out the fruit of their womb. 34 Similarly, St. Jerome in about 384 lamented that many women practiced abortion by using "drugs." 35 And in the latter part of the fifth century, Caesarius of Arles, in one of his sermons, said, "No woman should take any drug to procure an abortion." 36 In another sermon he again condemns abortion, and here too he links it with the taking of a pharmaceutical mixture (potiones in Latin). 37 Basil of Caesarea, a bishop in the latter half of the fourth century, asserted, "Women. . .who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children are murderesses." 38
Whether abortion was performed by using some type of potion or by some other means, prominent Christian leaders unequivocally condemned it. For instance, Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher and layman writing in about A.D. 177 to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, defended his fellow Christians against the preposterous charge of cannibalism that stemmed from Christians believing they received the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. He forcefully responded, "What reason would we [Christians] have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderesses?" 39 Tertullian (d. ca. 220), the Latin church father in northern Africa, stated the Christian position in opposition to abortion by saying, "We may not destroy even the foetus in the womb." And he continued, "Nor does it matter whether you take away the life that is born or destroy one that is coming to birth" (Apology 9).
By the beginning of the early fourth century, Christian opposition to abortion was no longer voiced only by individual theologians but also by the church collectively. For instance, the church in the West not only condemned abortion in the Synod of Elvira, Spain (ca. 305 or 306), but it also excommunicated women who had abortions and did not accept repentance for their acts until their final hour of life. 40 In the East, the Council of Ancyra (now modern Turkey) took its stand against abortion in 314. The Canons of St. Basil, formulated by Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) and accepted by the Eastern church in the mid-fourth century, opposed abortion and the guild of abortionists (the sagae). This guild provided abortifacients and surgical devices for abortion. Its members also sold aborted bodies to the manufacturers of beauty creams. 41 Basil mobilized Christians to help minister to women who were facing unwanted pregnancies. At times he helped stage public protests against abortion. His efforts reportedly inspired Emperor Valentinian to outlaw abortion, along with infanticide and child abandonment, in 374.
Antiabortion laws did not put an end to all abortions, however. Pagans, of course, continued practicing it, as did some "so-called Christians," as Origen called them. So the church passed more canons (rules) proscribing it. Thus, in 524 the Council of Lerida (Spain) condemned abortions, as had the Synod of Elvira two hundred years earlier. In the twelfth century Ivo Chartes and Gratian noted that from the fourth century to their day, over four thousand canons had been issued affirming the sanctity of life. 42 Nor did the pro-life affirmations end with the twelfth century. After the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Protestants joined the Catholics in condemning abortion. Martin Luther, for example, asserted that "those who pay no attention to pregnant women and do not spare the tender fetus are murderers and parricides." 43 John Calvin said, "The unborn child.. though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being... and should not he robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. " 44
Christian opposition to abortion, which resulted in antiabortion laws, continued uninterruptedly well into the twentieth century. In 1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor whom Hitler executed a month before the end of World War II, reflected the view of the Christian church's long-standing opposition to abortion. Said he: "Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life." 45 Bonhoeffer's statement was rather typical of Christian theologians and formal church positions up to the 1960s.
As is well known, abortion on demand has become widely accepted today in Western societies, and as indicated above, liberal theology and secularism have greatly contributed to its acceptance. Even most mainline Protestant churches, most of them influenced by liberal theology, have come to accept abortion on demand and have thereby largely rejected Christianity's long-standing adherence to the sanctity of human life, at least in regard to abortion. Only a few of the larger denominations, such as the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Wesleyan Methodists, continue to walk the path of their Christian ancestors, reaching back to the pristine church. And of course the Roman Catholic Church continues to be firmly opposed to abortion. But even within these denominations, in contrast to the early church, there is really no Christian admonition or discipline regarding abortion when some of their members - for instance, legislators - promote pro-abortion laws.
The early church's opposition to abortion, along with its condemnation of infanticide and child abandonment, was a major factor in institutionalizing the sanctity of human life in the Western world. As historian W. E. H. Lecky has observed, "the value and sanctity of infant life. . .broadly distinguishe[d] Christian from Pagan societies." 46 The sanctity of life, with the exception of abortion, is still largely present today. Thus, the words of another historian are fitting: "The intrinsic worth of each individual man and woman as a child of God and an immortal soul was introduced by Christianity." 47
As already indicated, until about the mid-twentieth century Christianity's opposition to abortion was accepted virtually by everyone, even by those who had little or no identification with the church. For instance, in the latter part of the nineteenth century even the feminist leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Gage strongly opposed abortion. Anthony said, "I deplore the horrible crime of child murder [abortion]. . .No matter what motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed;.. . but oh! thrice guilty is he who for selfish gratification.. .drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime." 48 Today, however, most feminists favor and support the pro-abortion stance. The sanctity of human life, so zealously proclaimed and defended by the early Christians and their followers for nearly two millennia, has in the last several decades been significantly undermined by pro-abortion advocates, commonly outside the context of the church but sometimes also within sectors of the organized church itself.
Nothing-new-under-the-sun-bump.
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