1. Buddhism and abortion
Three factors necessary for rebirth into a
new life:
(1) intercourse must take place
(2) when the woman is in her fertile
period and
(3) there must be an ‘intermediate
being’ or viññāna present and ready for
rebirth.
2. What all this boils down to is that
traditionally Buddhists have understood
that the human being begins at the
instant of conception, when sperm, egg
and viññāna come together.
3. ...Most Western and Japanese
Buddhists come away believing in the
permissibility of abortion, while many
other Buddhists believe abortion to be
murder. James Hughes
4. R.H.B. Exell of the Siam Institute of
Technology concludes: ‘These
observations suggest that abortion
should be regarded as killing a separate
human being, not just removing a part
of the mother.’
5. All of this fits very well with the
fundamental Buddhist insight that all
living beings are interdependent, which
is most obvious in the case of the fetus.
6. Childbearing as being divided into four
stages:
the fertile period,
pregnancy,
birth and
nursing.
7. Indeed, modern embryological research
confirms the Buddhist teaching that a
separate, co-dependent human life
begins at the moment of conception.
How and when individual life begins ?
8. How the basic precepts of Buddhist
morality apply to the question of
abortion?
9. Although the first precept against taking
life includes all sentient life, the taking
of human life was a much more serious
offence.
10. As we have seen, Buddhists understand
the fetus to be a human being;
therefore, abortion obviously should be
covered under the first precept. Indeed
it is.
11. Buddhists believe that life should not be
destroyed, but they regard causing
death as morally wrong only if the
death is caused deliberately or by
negligence.
Traditional Buddhism rejects abortion
because it involves the deliberate
destroying of a life.
12. Buddhism believes in rebirth and
teaches that individual human life
begins at conception. The new being,
bearing the karmic identity of a recently
deceased individual, is therefore as
entitled to the same moral respect as
an adult human being.
Damien Keown,
13. It's personal
Buddhists are expected to take full
personal responsibility for everything
they do and for the consequences that
follow.
14. The decision to abort is therefore a
highly personal one, and one that
requires careful and compassionate
exploration of the ethical issues
involved, and a willingness to carry the
burden of whatever happens as a result
of the decision.
15. The ethical consequences of the
decision will also depend on the motive
and intention behind the decision, and
the level of mindfulness with which it
was taken.
16. Buddhism and killing
Five conditions must be present to constitute
an act of killing:
the thing killed must be a living being
the killer, must know or be aware that it is a
living being
you must have the intention to kill it
there must be an effort to kill
the being must be killed as the result
17. Example of how an abortion might constitute
an act of killing:
When a baby is conceived, a living being is
created and that satisfies the first condition.
Although Buddhists believe that beings live in
a cycle of birth death and rebirth, they regard
the moment of conception as the beginning
of the life of an embodied individual.
18. After a few weeks the woman becomes
aware of its existence and that meets
the second condition.
If she decides she wants an abortion
that provides an intention to kill.
19. When she seeks an abortion that meets
the fourth condition of making an
effort to kill.
Finally the being is killed because of
that action.
20. Lives in the balance
Buddhists face a difficulty where an abortion
is medically necessary to save the life of the
mother and so a life will be lost whether there
is or isn't an abortion.
In such cases the moral status of an abortion
will depend on the intentions of those
carrying it out.
21. decision is taken: compassionately, and
after long and careful thought;
then although the action may be wrong
the moral harm done will be reduced by
the good intentions involved.
22. Abortion for the sake of the baby
if the child would be so severely
handicapped that it would undergo great
suffering, abortion is permissible.
23. The Dalai Lama has said:
Of course, abortion, from a Buddhist
viewpoint, is an act of killing and is
negative, generally speaking. But it
depends on the circumstances.
24. If the unborn child will be retarded or if the
birth will create serious problems for the
parent, these are cases where there can be
an exception. I think abortion should be
approved or disapproved according to each
circumstance.
Dalai Lama, New York Times, 28/11/1993
25. Japan
Abortion is common in Japan, and has
been used as a form of birth control.
26. Japan
Some followers of Japanese Buddhism who
have had an abortion make offerings to Jizo,
the god of lost travelers and children. They
believe that Jizo will tender the child until it is
reborn in another incarnation.
27. They do this in a mizuko kuyō, a
memorial service for aborted children
that became popular in the 1970s. (The
service can also be used in cases of
miscarriage or stillbirth.) The ritual
includes elements of folk religion and
Shinto as well as Buddhism.
28. why Buddhist principles treat abortion
as such a serious matter ?
Human life, with all its potential for
moral and spiritual development, is
seen as a rare and precious opportunity
in a being’s wandering in the round of
rebirths.
29. Thai Buddhist Views on
Abortion
Dr Pinit Ratanakul, who holds that
Thai Buddhists believe in the
uniqueness and preciousness of human
life irrespective of its stages of
development . . .
30. According to him, to destroy any form
of human life will yield bad karmic
results . . .
The gravity of these results depends on
many factors, such as the intensity of
the doer’s intention and effort, as well
as the size and quality of the being that
was killed . . .
31. He thus sees ..... Thai women’s
preference for earlier rather than later
abortions as appropriate. While this
preference may be partly because a late
abortion is more difficult to hide from
others, that is not the only
consideration.
32. Vinaya rules
As we have seen, Buddhists understand
the fetus to be a human being;
therefore, abortion obviously should be
covered under the first precept.
The Vinaya section of the Pali Canon,
contains a passage, which makes this
point very clearly.
33. When a monk is ordained he should not
intentionally deprive a living being of
life, even if it is only an ant. Whatever
monk deprives a human being of life,
even (antamaso) down to destroying an
embryo, he becomes not a (true)
renouncer, not a son of the Sakiyans.
(Vin. 197)
34. The penalty for a monk intentionally
causing an abortion is permanent
expulsion from the Sangha:
“Whatever monk should intentionally
deprive a human being of life . . . he is
also one who is defeated [in the
monastic life], he is not in
communion . . .”
35. Human being means: from the mind’s
first arising, from (the time of)
consciousness becoming first manifest
in a mother’s womb until the time of
death, here meanwhile he is called a
human being. (Vin. III.73).
36. Intention is a key factor:
This can be seen at Vin. III.83–84, on a
series of cases where a woman asks a monk
for an abortive preparation, either for herself
or a rival co-wife.
37. If he accedes to her request, then:
(a) if the child dies, he is defeated, even if he
is remorseful;
(b) if the child does not die, but the mother
does, this is a grave offence (lesser than
defeat), entailing temporary suspension: this
must be because this result was not that
intended by the monk;
(c) the same applies if neither die;
38. (d) if both die, ‘ditto’: this must surely
refer back to the judgement in case (a),
defeat, rather than in cases (b)–(c), as
the child dies, as intended;
(e) if he simply tells her how to cause
an abortion by crushing or scorching,
and the child dies, he is defeated.
39. In case (e), the commentary says that the
monk is not defeated if the child is aborted,
but by the woman using a different method
from the one he recommended, or by a
different person applying that same method
to the woman.8 Here again, as in (b), the
woman does not carry out what the monk
had told her to do, so the offence is less
serious.
40. Buddhaghosa says: taking fetal life was
as serious an offence as killing an adult.
In the case of digging a trap with the
intent to kill someone, he concluded the
following:
41. If a pregnant woman falls in and dies
along with her child, this counts as two
breaches of the precept against taking
life. If the child [alone] dies there is one
[breach], and if the child does not die
but the mother dies there is also one.
42. There is some controversy about
whether or not, from the Buddhist point
of view, a late term abortion is a more
unskilful act than one performed early
on in the pregnancy.
43. Trevor Ling and Peter Harvey both
report that some Buddhists believe that
the bad karma for aborting a large fetus
is proportionally greater than the bad
karma for aborting a small one.
44. Moral distinction based on relative size
applies only in regard to animals, and
that in all cases treated in scripture and
by the classical commentators, the size
of the fetus is not taken into account.
Keown
45. As we have seen, Buddhists understand
the fetus to be a human being;
therefore, abortion obviously should be
covered under the first precept.
46. Rules for Monk
An ordained monk should not intentionally
deprive a living thing of life even if it is only
an ant.
A monk who deliberately deprives a human
being of life, even to the extent of causing an
abortion, is no longer a follower of the
Buddha. As a flat stone broken
asundercannot be put back together again, a
monk who deliberately deprives a human
being of life is no longer a follower of the
Buddha.
