National Post columnist repeats blunder about abortion
National Post columnist Colby Cosh stated last July that Christians did not consider abortion murder “before the 1960s”. McGill University religious studies professor Douglas Farrow immediately pointed out his egregious error and cited early church fathers condemning abortion. Mr Cosh initially replied to Dr Farrow’s rejoinder with defiance, but when Farrow responded with yet more evidence, Cosh shut up.
One might think that Mr Cosh would learn from his publicly exposed blunders, but apparently not, for he spouts the same nonsense today.
I am amazed a hundred times a year that pro-life Christians get away with claiming that they stand on eternal principles when it comes to abortion, even though, if you prod them, they […] will admit that it was the progress of scientific understanding which obligated them to suddenly promote abortion in the panoply of sins, circa 1968.
This is one pro-life Christian who will admit no such thing, even if prodded. Based on what he wrote last July, Douglas Farrow would appear to be another. I doubt we’re the only two.
In fact, Christians have considered abortion a grave sin for two millennia. The 1st-century Christian document known as the Didache, or the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, says:
[T]hou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born;
The second-century Christian apologist Athenagoras wrote:
[T]hose women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder …
Other Christians who view abortion as murder include Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria (both 2nd century), Sts Basil the Great and Ambrose (4th century), Sts John Chrysostom and Jerome (5th century), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (20th century).
Says Gerald Bonner, former Professor of Theology, Durham University: ”Tertullian’s assertion that abortion was forbidden to Christians represents the universal teaching of the early Church”.
Mr Cosh seems to think that abortion presents no special moral dilemmas. He is, of course, free to hold that view, but it is simple ignorance to continue to insist that Christians found abortion equally unproblematic until forty years ago—especially when one has already been corrected by a professor of religious studies well-acquainted with the historical references.
Cosh’s article of last July is available online, as is Farrow’s rejoinder. The comments by Cosh and Farrow are appended to the latter.
UPDATE (3 Jan.): Charles Lewis, a man who actually knows something about religious views on abortion, takes Cosh to the woodshed.
why not write a letter to the editor, asking why someone who deliberately makes the same mistake twice maintains his position?
Done.
[...] A NATPOST columnist repeats blunder about abortion …. [...]
Honestly, you’re not the least bit self-conscious about the 15-century gap in your seamless web of Church teaching that abortion is murder? Gotta say, this is an unusually comfy woodshed.
The authorities I cited are more than sufficient to prove you wrong. Why don’t you just admit it?
They aren’t, actually: St. Jerome, for example, specifically told a correspondent that “seeds are gradually formed in the uterus, and it is not reputed homicide until the scattered members received their appearance.” He does not belong on your list; not coincidentally, he is the most prestigious name on it.
I’ll get to St Jerome in a moment but, even without him, the statement in my previous comment stands:
You made a categorical claim that “pro-life Christians” did not view abortion as a grave sin until “circa 1968”. It takes only a single counter-example to prove you wrong.
Now you’re claiming that a certain level of notoriety is required. That’s the same diversion you tried to put over on Douglas Farrow last July. It doesn’t carry any more logical force now that it did then.
Referring to tragic cases of consecrated Christian virgins who try to conceal the guilt of fornication, St Jerome wrote:
Source: Jerome, Ep. 22,13, trans. F.A. Wright, Loeb ed., p. 79, cited by Gerald Bonner, “Abortion and Early Christian Thought”, in Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life, ed. J.H. Channer (1985), pp.108-109.