WORSE THAN MURDER

Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit; where there are medicines of sterility; where there is murder before birth? You do not even let an adulterer, a fornicator, a harlot remain as such but you make her a murderess as well.

Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed, but prevent its formation. What then?

Do you condemn the gifts of God and fight with His laws? Why do you seek a curse as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom a place of slaughter? Do you teach the women who are given to you for procreation of offspring to perpetuate killings?

St. John Chrysostom

(11-04-02)