How Long Have Christians Been Pro-Life? A Very, Very, Very Long Time...

I came across this quote from a Catholic blog called the WardWideWeb and he quotes from Athenagoras: Embassy for the Christians, and The Resurrection of the Dead. In the book, Athenagoras, a Christian apologist from around 170 A.D., argues in a letter to the Emperor that Christians are not murders, as their pagan enemies portend.

In this argument, Athenagoras specifies Christian opposition to abortion as well.

"But we consider the looking on at a murder to be nigh to murder itself and forbid ourselves such spectacles. If then we do not even look on at these shows (so as not to be under a curse and to incur defilement), how can we be capable of murder?

Again, we call it murder and say it will be accountable to God if women use instruments to procure abortion: how shall we be called murderers ourselves?

The same man cannot regard that which a woman carries in her womb as a living creature, and therefore as an object of value to God, and then go about to slay the creature that has come forth to the light of day.

The same man cannot forbid the exposure of children, equating the exposure with child murder, and then slay a child that has found one to bring it up.

No, we are always consistent, everywhere the same, obedient to our rule and not masters of it."

This is the second early Christian document I have read that specifically states Christian opposition to abortion.

So the fact is, you cannot be Christian and pro-choice. Those have been opposing forces since the institution of Christianity itself.