If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, . . . if any lasting harm follows, then you will give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ex. 21:22–24
[ADDRESSED TO EXPECTANT MOTHERS:] Tell us whether you feel in the embryo within you any vital force other than your own. For your bowels tremble, your sides shake, your entire womb throbs, and the burden that affects you constantly changes its position. Are not these movements a joy to you and a positive removal of anxiety? Does this not make you confident that your infant both possesses vitality and enjoys it? If his restlessness stopped, your first fear would be for him. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.205
Life begins with conception, for we contend that the soul also begins from conception. Life takes its commencement at the same place and time that the soul does. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.207
Nature should be to us an object of reverence, not of blushes. It is lust—not natural usage—that has brought shame on the intercourse of the sexes. It is the excess, not the normal state, that is immodest and unchaste. The normal condition has received a blessing from God, and is blessed by Him. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.208
Now the entire process of sowing, forming, and completing the human embryo in the womb is no doubt regulated by some power, which ministers therein to the will of God—regardless of what may be the method that it is appointed to employ. . . . We, on our part, believe the angels to officiate herein for God. The embryo, therefore, becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.217
The flesh and the soul have a simultaneous birth, without any calculable difference in time. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.578
If we become injured in the womb, this is a loss suffered by what is already a human being. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.589
The soul is not introduced into the body after birth, as some philosophers think. Rather, it is introduced immediately after conception, when the divine necessity has formed the offspring in the womb. Lactantius (c. 304–313, W), 7.297