Excerpt from a sermon of St. Caesarius
Bishop of Arles (470-543)
Sermon 44 # 2
No woman should take drugs for purposes of abortion, nor should she kill her
children that have been conceived or are already born. If anyone does this, she
should know that before Christ’s tribunal she will have to plead her case in the
presence of those she has killed. Moreover, women should not take diabolical
draughts with the purpose of not being able to conceive children. A woman who
does this ought to realize that she will be guilty of as many murders as the
number of children she might have borne. I would like to know whether a woman of
nobility who takes deadly drugs to prevent conception wants her maids or tenants
to do so. Just as every woman wants slaves born for her so that they may serve
her, so she herself should nurse all the children she conceives, or entrust them
to others for rearing. Otherwise, she may refuse to conceive children or, what
is more serious, be willing to kill souls which might have been good Christians.
Now, with what kind of a conscience does she desire slaves to be born of her
servants, when she herself refuses to bear children who might become Christians?
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