Religion and abortion

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Abortion debate
Part of the abortion series
Movements
Pro-choice
Pro-life
Issues of discussion

- Breast cancer
- CPCs
- Crime effect
- Ethics
- Fetal pain
- Fetal rights
- Genetics
- Late-term
- Libertarianism
- Mental health

- Minors
- Paternal rights
- Philosophy
- Public opinion
- Religion
- Self-induced
- Sex-selection
- Unsafe abortion
- Women's rights
- Violence

Many religious traditions include views on abortion, and these views span a broad spectrum from acceptance to rejection.[1] Although individual adherents of various faiths may have varying views on abortion, there is nonetheless a rough correlation between "official" and personal views on the question, and this is more true in some groups than in others.[2] According to one ABC News Poll in 2001, "Religious beliefs" are reported as the main opinion forming influence for 50% of those who oppose legal abortion in the U.S.; "non-religious beliefs" are reported as the main influence for the plurality of those who support it.[3]

Contents

[edit] Buddhism

Main article: Buddhist ethics

There is no single Buddhist view concerning abortion.[4] Those practicing in Japan and the United States are said to be more tolerant of abortion than those who live elsewhere.[5] In Japan, women sometimes participate in Mizuko kuyo (水子供養 — lit.) after an induced abortion or an abortion as the result of a miscarriage. The Dalai Lama has said that abortion is "negative," but there are exceptions. He said, "I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance."[6]

[edit] Christianity

Main article: Christianity and abortion

There is no mention in the Christian Bible about abortion, and at different times Christians have held different beliefs about abortion.[7] For example, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Innocent III, and Pope Gregory XIV believed that a fetus does not have a soul until "quickening," or when a woman begins to feel her fetus kick and move. However, Pope Stephen V and Pope Sixtus V opposed abortion at any stage of pregnancy.[8]

Historically, Fundamentalist (Evangelical) Protestant denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention supported abortion rights.[9] It was not until 1980 that fundamentalist Protestants began to organize in opposition to abortion.[10]

At this time, the Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Fundamentalist Protestant, and Roman Catholic denominations are against abortion. However, some of these denominations make exceptions in their doctrine for abortion performed to save the life of the mother, and in cases of pregnancy as a result of rape or incest.[11][12] Roman Catholics make no exceptions, arguing that the way conception occurs makes no bearing on the quality of a life. [13]

Mainline Protestants, such as Episcopalians, Methodists, United Reformed, Quakers, those in the United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalists, and Presbyterians are generally pro-choice. Many of these denominations are members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.[14]

They argue that imposing a particular religiously-based anti-abortion public policy on the abortion issue is inimical to religious freedom and church/state separation within their denominations, and many affiliated organisations have published ethical guidelines to assist female church members who are engaged in making reproductive choices.

[edit] Hinduism

Hindus hold varying stances on abortion. Some Hindu institutions oppose abortion,[15] and teach that abortion prevents a soul in its karmic progress toward God.[16] While some Hindu theologians believe personhood begins at 3 and develops through to 5 months of gestation, possibly implying permitting abortion up to the third month and considering any abortion past the third month to be destruction of the soul's current incarnate body.[17] However, some Hindus have found that abortion, especially the abortion pill, is a major step towards women's empowerment.[18]

[edit] Islam

Among Muslims, the prohibition against abortion depends from case to case. In the case where the woman's life is threatened by the pregnancy, Muslim jurists agree that abortion is allowed based on the principle that "the greater evil [mother's death] should be warded off by the lesser evil [abortion]." In these cases the physician is considered a better judge than the scholar.[19]

Muslim scholars differ on when life begins. The medieval scholar Al-Ghazali writes that life occurs "when semen is injected into the womb where it merges with the ovum and becomes predisposed to receive life."[20] 120 days is often seen as the point at which a fetus becomes fully human. This has been described as an angel coming and "breathing life into the fetus." Before this time, the fetus lacks a human soul, and is considered on the same level as plants and animals.[21] Thus Hanafi, Shafi and Zaydi schools of thought permit abortion, though they hold that it is still makruh (detested by God) without a good reason.[22][23]

On the issue of the life of the mother, Muslims universally agree that her life takes precedence over the life of the fetus. This is because the mother is considered the "original source of life," while the fetus is only "potential" life.[24]

Some Muslim scholars also argue in favor of abortion in early pregnancy if the newborn might be sick in some way that would make its care exceptionally difficult for the parents (eg. deformities, mental retardation, etc). Some scholars argue that abortion is allowed for important reasons on the first 40 days. Sheikh Nasr Farid Wasil extends this period to 120 days.[25] Ikrima Sabri, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, gave a ruling that Muslim women raped by Serb men during the Kosovo War could take abortifacient medicine.[26][27]

[edit] Judaism

Main article: Judaism and abortion

In Judaism, views on abortion draw primarily upon the legal and ethical teachings of the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the case-by-case decisions of responsa, and other rabbinic literature. In the modern period, moreover, Jewish thinking on abortion has responded both to liberal understandings of personal autonomy as well as Christian opposition to abortion.[28] Generally speaking, traditionalist Jews firmly oppose abortion, with few health-related exceptions, and liberal Jews tend to allow greater latitude for abortion. In the United States, Orthodox Jews are affiliated to the Pro-Life Religious Council, while Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism and Reform Judaism have representative organisations within the interfaith Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice [1]

[edit] Sikhism

Although the Sikh code of conduct does not deal directly with abortion (or indeed many other bioethical issues), it is generally forbidden in Sikhism because it interferes in the creative work of God. In Sikhism, it is accepted that life begins at conception (see page 74 of the Guru Granth Sahib). Conception having taken place, it would be a sin to destroy (abort) life.

Despite this theoretical viewpoint, abortion is not uncommon among the Sikh community in India,[29] and there is concern that the practice of aborting female embryos because of a cultural preference for sons is growing.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Follow the links under "Religious Views" for examples at the BBC's Ethics:Abortion page.
  2. ^ Ibid. 63% of "Evangelical white Protestants" oppose, and 66% of "non-evangelical white Protestants" support.
  3. ^ Data from an ABCNEWS/Beliefnet Poll
  4. ^ "Abortion: Buddhism." BBC Religion & Ethics. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
  5. ^ Barnhart, Michael G. (1995). Buddhism and the Morality of Abortion. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 5. Retrieved August 10, 2006.
  6. ^ Dreifus, Claudia. (November 28, 1993). "The Dalai Lama." The New York Times
  7. ^ When Children Became People: the birth of childhood in early Christianity by Odd Magne Bakke
  8. ^ ReligiousTolerance.org
  9. ^ They Kindgom Come pg. 15, a book by Randall Herbert Balmer, Professor of Religion and History at Barnard College.
  10. ^ They Kindgom Come pg. 12, a book by Randall Herbert Balmer, Professor of Religion and History at Barnard College.
  11. ^ Ny Times
  12. ^ Religious Tolerance
  13. ^ American Catholic.org
  14. ^ Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
  15. ^ Hinduism Today
  16. ^ Feminism & Nonviolence Studies | Date: 9/22/1998 | Author: Derr, Mary Krane; Murti, Vasu
  17. ^ Chapter 1: Dilemmas of Life and Death: Hindu Ethics in a North American Context | Date: 1995 | Author: Crawford, S. Cromwell
  18. ^ The Hindu: Online edition of India's National Newspaper
  19. ^ BBC.co.uk
  20. ^ al-Ghazali. al-Islam 'aqida wa shari'a, 3d ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Qalam, n.d.), 211-13.
  21. ^ Musallam, B. (1990) "The Human Embryo in Arabic Scientific and Religious Thought" in G. R. Dunstan (ed.) The Human Embryo (Exeter : 1990)
  22. ^ Musallam, B. (1990) "The Human Embryo in Arabic Scientific and Religious Thought" in G. R. Dunstan (ed.) The Human Embryo (Exeter : 1990)
  23. ^ Islam-USA.com Islam-usa.com
  24. ^ Bowen (2003), pg. 61, who attributes this to: Ebrahim, Abortion, 19.
  25. ^ Chaim (2003), pg. 86
  26. ^ Ikrima Sabri. Fatwa shar'iyya hawla jarimat al-ightisab fi Kusuvu (Jerusalem: Publications of Majlis al-Fatwa al-Ala, 25 April 1999).
  27. ^ Quoted by: Chaim (2003), pg. 88
  28. ^ Jakobovits, Sinclair
  29. ^ see the BBC's Abortion page on Sikhism.

[edit] External links

[edit] Religious organizations which oppose abortion

[edit] Religious groups supporting legal abortion

Here is a partial list of religious groups that support legal abortion.

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