Abortion Matters
Abortion as a Challenge to Christian Orthodoxy
by Terry Schlossberg
Approval of abortion by mainline Protestant denominations is a thoroughly modern phenomenon—scarcely more than two decades old. Early Church documents—the second-century Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas, for example—specifically condemned abortion. Opposition to abortion can be found as a thread running through the ancient writings of church fathers up to those of twentieth-century theologians and denominational proclamations. Orthodox scholar Alexander Webster notes that for all the points of division in the Christian Church through the centuries, abortion was one matter on which the Church was never divided.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Terry Schlossberg is executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life (www.ppl.org), one of the sixteen unofficial renewal groups in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
24.1—January/February 2011
How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won by Allan C. Carlson
30.3—May/June 2017
on the Misuse of Property Rights to Justify Slavery & Abortion by Robert Hart
more from the online archives
36.1—Jan/Feb 2023
A History of the Protestant Debate over Contraception by James A. Altena
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
Christ, Individualism & the Meaning of Cultural Diversity by Anthony Esolen
32.6—November/December 2019
Historical Truth, Beguiling Stories & Three Kinds of Hearers by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
