Legacy of life
Pro-life advocacy is as old as the gospel
By James Hernando
In August of 1998, as Allison Baker entered the soiled linen
closet of Christ Hospital in Oak Hill, Ill., something caught her eye.1 The
movement was subtle at first, and she might have ignored it had she not heard
the faint sound.
There across the room, lying naked on a metal table was a
baby, deliberately delivered prematurely at 22 weeks. The Down syndrome child
gasped for breath, its arms and legs flailing.
Baker knew that such live-birth abortions took place at the
hospital, but usually the babies were wrapped in a blanket and placed in a
warmer until they expired. Baker was incensed at this inhumane treatment. When
she inquired of the nurse in charge, she was told staff were just too busy and
did not have time to do anything more.
Baker wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed it in a
warmer. The baby lived for just 2½ hours.
Things might have gone unchanged, but the following year
Jill Stanek, a Christian nurse, learned the same hospital had just performed a
second-trimester abortion of another Down syndrome baby. She was shocked to
discover the hospital routinely performed induced “therapeutic” abortions on
second- and third-trimester babies and often the baby was born alive. If the
mother did not want to hold the child, it was often taken to the soiled linen
closet and left to die.
Death sometimes came slowly. More often the child died
within an hour or two, but later Jill learned of babies who survived for up to
eight hours.
At the sight of a colleague carrying a Down syndrome child,
Stanek intervened. She could not bear the thought of leaving the baby boy to
die alone and unattended amid medical waste and soiled linen. She took the baby and rocked and
cradled him for 45 minutes until he died.
Outraged, Stanek went to hospital administrators and told
her story. Her protest was met with indifference. It was hospital policy deemed
“humanitarian,” sparing the parents and others the pain of watching the child
die. To her dismay, Stanek found almost no support from Christian colleagues.
Her protest did gain one supporter in Baker, who decided to
add her voice and testimony. Together they began to lobby members of the
Illinois state congress. Enough legislators were moved to action by their story
that a bill was drafted mandating medical treatment to babies who survive an
abortion. It passed overwhelmingly. Next they took their story to members of
the U.S. Congress, who drafted the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” In 2003
it passed in the Senate 98-0.
Stanek’s and Baker’s protests are recent additions to a long
line of voices raised through the ages. In fact, an ancient pro-life tradition
dates back to the earliest Christian writers.
We forget that the world Christ entered was no stranger to
abortion. Greeks and Romans practiced not only abortion, but also abandonment,
the exposure of infants, and outright infanticide. Roman society left unwanted
babies (usually girls) in public dumps outside the city walls. The ancient
Greeks developed herbal potions that induced abortions. The same is true of
ancient Hindus and Arabs. Persians were known for their refined surgical
procedures that would cut the developing baby from the womb. The Bible records
the Canaanites’ practice of child sacrifice, a practice detestable to the Jews.
As Christian scholar George Grant points out, “Virtually
every culture in antiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children.”2
Dramatically, the coming of Christ and the preaching of the
gospel brought a revolt against the wanton destruction of innocent human life.
Why? The answer undoubtedly lies with the sacredness of human life explicit in
the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. God, as Creator, is the Author of life3 and is
therefore sovereign4 over His creation. Humans derive their value from God who
created them in His image. Human life receives its highest dignity through the
incarnation of Christ, so essential and instrumental to our redemption.5
Consequently, it is no surprise that the Christian protest
against abortion, abandonment and infanticide is replete among the apostolic
fathers of the Early Church. The first-century Didache is a treatise purporting
to present the teachings of the apostles. In it we read of two ways, “the way
of life” and “way of death.” Thus, the writer enjoins, “Do not murder a child
by abortion, or kill a newborn infant”6 Similarly, the Epistle of Barnabus
(early second century) enjoins us to love our neighbors more than ourselves.
Such love prohibits both the slaying of children through abortion, and killing
a child that has just been born.7
Athenagoras (ca. 177), writing to the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius declared, “The fetus in the womb is a living being and therefore the
object of God’s care.”8 Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200) affirmed our whole life
can only move toward God’s perfect plan if we give Him dominion over every area
of life. To illustrate the opposite he cites destroying human offspring
“through perverse and pernicious arts,” offspring “who are given birth by
Divine Providence.”9 He goes on to condemn those who hide their fornication
through abortion, which he equates with murder and a crime against the human
race.
Similar and numerous sentiments and condemnations can be
found among the Early Church fathers: Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome and
Augustine.10 However, there was none more singularly impassioned to change his
pro-death culture than Basil of Caesarea (ca. 330-379).11 Sometime during the
middle of the fourth century he poured himself into ministry among the poor.
Walking about the city brought him face to face with societal evil in its
diverse forms and expressions. However, none burdened him more than abortion,
infanticide, exposure and abandonment.
Christianity had already received its official status, but
pagan practices persisted in Cappadocia. Particularly grievous was the guild of
abortionists known as the sague, which facilitated abortions among poor
women.12 Basil launched into a campaign of protest. He preached a sermon series
on the sanctity of human life. His messages rang with prophetic denunciation.
He condemned abortion as murder, and denounced the abortionists as “murderers
themselves.”
Basil, however, did not merely curse the darkness, but also
embarked on a proactive ministry to support the women seeking abortions so as
to offer an alternative. He lobbied against the tradition of
exposure/infanticide of unwanted children. His efforts changed society in his time.
With his own hands he and his deacons dismantled the infanticide shrine in
Caesarea. He lived to see the demise of the sague when Emperor Valentinian in
374 condemned child killing.
The world has changed much since the days of Basil of
Caesarea, but not as much as is needed. The story of Allison Baker and Jill
Stanek suggests that only the actors have changed. We still live in a culture
of death. More than 40 million babies have been aborted since the Roe v. Wade
decision of 1973. Advocates of partial birth abortions lobby for what is
nothing less than infanticide, as the practice of induced live abortions
graphically illustrates. Christians must not be silent. The same Holy Spirit
who inspired the protest of a Caesarean bishop broods over Christ’s church in
search of new heroes of life to raise up a prophetic standard.
1 The following story is based on testimony given by Allison
Baker and Jill Stanek on July 20, 2000, before the U.S. House of
Representatives at a hearing on H.R. 4292, The “Born-Alive Infant Protection
Act of 2000.”
2 George Grant, Third Time Around: A History of the Pro-life
Movement from the First Century to the Present, (Brentwood, Tenn.: Wolgemuth
& Hyatt Publishers, 1991), 12.
3 Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 36:9; Psalm 104:24-30; Isaiah
45:9-12.
4 Deuteronomy 32:39; Job 10:12; Psalms 22:9-10; 139:13-16.
5 John 3:16; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6. Cf. Acts 2:22-28; Romans
5:21; Colossians 3:4; 2 Timothy 1:10.
6 Didache, 1.1; 2.2.
7 Epistle of Barnabus, 19.6.
8 Athenagoras, A Plea for Christians, 35.6.
9 Clement of Alexandria. Paedagogus, 2.10.96.
10 Tertullian, Apology, 8.6; 9:4; Ambrose, Hexameron,
5.16.58; Jerome, Letter to Eustochium, 22.13; Augustine, On Marriage, 1.17.15.
11 For this survey I am indebted to Grant, Third Time,
17-21.
12 Grant points out the lucrative practice of selling the
fetuses to Egyptian cosmetologists for the production of beauty creams. See
Grant, Third Time, 19.
DR. JAMES HERNANDO is professor of New Testament studies at
Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Mo.
E-mail your comments to tpe@ag.org.
