While it is easy to think that abortion is a “modern” problem, it needs to be acknowledged that women have been murdering their children from time immemorial.
Written records of herbal, chemical, mechanical, and surgical abortion techniques have been discovered dating all the way back to the third millennium B.C. and from several ancient cultures.
Included below are some historical examples of how men of God in the past sought to address this great evil through writing and preaching (arranged chronologically).
Athenagoras (c. AD 133-190 ) – “A Plea to Christians to Detest Cruelty and Murder”
Hippolytus (c. AD 170-235) – “Rebuking a Roman Bishop who Allowed Abortions”
Basil the Great (AD 329-379) – “On the Punishment of Women who Have an Abortion”
John Chrysostom (c. AD 347-407) – “Parties, Drunkenness, Fornication, and Abortion”
Jerome (c. AD 347-420) – “Against Immodesty, Licentiousness, and Murder”
Augustine (AD 354-430) – “Abortion-Specific Implications from the Doctrine of the Resurrection”
Boniface (AD 680-754) – “Abortion Renounced in Baptism as a Work of the Devil”
John Calvin (AD 1509-1564) – “Explanation from Scripture that Abortion is a Capital Crime”
Bonhoeffer (AD 1906-1945) – “Abortion as a Violation of an Embryo’s Right to Live”