Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) is perhaps best known as one of the few Christian leaders who stood against Adolf Hitler and his policies leading to World War II and the Holocaust, “the final solution to the Jewish question.” Because of his courageous opposition to Nazism, pastor Bonhoeffer was executed in a concentration camp in Flossenbürg, Germany. In addition to his Ethics, Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship and Life Together are Christian classics.
An ardent defender of all innocent human life, Bonhoeffer did not mince words when speaking about the destruction of the unborn. Christians do well to follow his example and resist euphemisms for the killing of unborn human beings.
Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.1
Footnotes:
1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, trans. N. H. Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 130-131.
