Essay on Buddhist view on Abortion

This topic is also argued in different religions. The Catholic Church believes that abortion is murder and no person born or unborn should be unwillingly killed. Murder is against the Ten Commandments and a serious crime. They believe that abortion is wrong and just as bad as murder. Many Catholic protest abortion by holding protests outside of abortion clinics.

womb or not. As a Catholic, we would see that having an abortion is a

Buddhist considers all life to be sacred and/or spiritual in nature. They believe in reincarnation and a person’s spiritual future is based solely on one’s good or bad actions in this lifetime, also known as Karma.

Abortion in many Buddhist positions appears to be justifiable when it conflicts with bodily autonomy or maintain the idea that a foetus is closer in status to a small or undeveloped animal. Although most views conflict with the first Buddhist precept of not bringing harm to sentient beings, living humans seem to be the most important when considering this and preference is given to the mother of a foetus as well as a foetus not being fully recognised as a human being by some Buddhist variants. Abortion in a Buddhists view however, is seen as a last resort by all variants.

Consider for a moment a society in which there are no rules or laws. A society in which everyone is allowed to do what they please whenever they feel like it without any consequences. The world would be in a state of chaos. In order to maintain order and implement laws we use a set of morals to judge what actions are permissible and which are not. Through evaluating their actions and the outcomes of these actions, humans begin to develop morals. However, to fully understand the consequences one must first claim responsibility for her actions. The moral validity of abortion does not depend on the status of the unborn as a person, when life begins-whether it is conception, birth, or sometime between-or religious beliefs. The permission

There are many common pregnancy alternatives, but most often the resulting decision is abortion because it is effortless. Abortion is endings a women’s pregnancy by removing or forcing a fetus or embryo from the mother’s womb before it is able to survive on its own. Not all abortions are purposely done some are spontaneous like when a women that has a miscarriage. Rather abortion is done purposely or naturally it is a worldwide complication as to it being wrong or right. Abortion is an ethical issue that will be analyzed according to a personal worldview and Christian worldview. Ethical thinking will be examined by value-based decisions that address abortion from the perspective of a Christian worldview and comparing it to a personal assumption by addressing ethical dilemma, core beliefs, resolution, evaluation, and comparison.

In Buddhism there is no central authority on ethical matters but the Dalai Lama has spoken in favour of abortion under certain circumstances. His comment was that an act of killing is negative. 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.

The father of the foetus to be aborted has no right to be consulted or

     One of the toughest issues to debate in our world today is abortion. Abortion is the induced termination of pregnancy before the fetus can survive. Nowadays, abortion affects all people, not just the mother and the baby. There are moral, ethical, health-related, political, and religious aspects that affect how people feel towards abortion. By looking at religion and its views, one can see just how hard it would be to argue in the pro-choice position of this debate.

The main reason that Hinduism doesn’t have abortion is because they believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is a repeating cycle of birth, death, and then rebirth. The view of reincarnation makes a strong case to oppose abortion. If the baby is aborted the soul that is inside the woman suffers a major karmic setback in its life. The baby would not have been given a chance to earn good karma but is instead sent back to the reincarnation cycle. A soul will have many births and abortion deprives the soul of one of them. The moment of conception is believed that the baby soul is already alive and already a person from a very early stage of

Not only can abortion be examined using Buddhist Moral Thought, but Hindu Moral Thought can also give it a shot. Hinduism, which stems from the ancient Vedic religion, is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent, and it includes a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions of "daily morality" based on karma, dharma, and societal norms. Due to this wide spectrum, Hinduism grants absolute freedom towards belief and worship because it conceives the whole world as a single family. Using Hindu Moral Thought, abortion could be considered as an immoral act because it goes against the Natural Law of the universe (dharma) since the mother is “killing” her unborn child rather than giving birth to new life. Additionally, one of the ten disciplines

Many contemporary societies have faced conflict over the morality of abortion.* Such conflict also has affected large numbers within Christianity who want to accept responsibility for the protection of prenatal human life while also preserving the personal liberty of women. The need for guidelines has become evident, as the Church attempts to follow scripture, and to provide moral guidance while respecting individual conscience. Seventh-day Adventists want to relate to the question of abortion in ways that reveal faith in God as the Creator and Sustainer of all life and in ways that reflect Christian responsibility and freedom. Though honest differences on the question of abortion exist among Seventh-day Adventists, the following represents an attempt to provide

Of course, abortion, from a Buddhist viewpoint, is an act of killing and is negative,

Abortion is a heavily debated topic from a religious standpoint. Christian denominations like Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians typically are against abortion in any situation. They place a strong emphasis on Christian commandments that prohibits any form of killing (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, n.d). This sentiment is also shared by religions like Hinduism and Islam. In Hinduism, abortion is considered “garha-batta” or womb killing a very grievous sin. In Islam, abortion is considered as “haram” or forbidden (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2009). On the other hand, Buddhism, Judaism, Church of England, atheist, and agnostics are typically more open to the idea of abortion or abortion

Hindu medical ethics stem from the teaching of ahimsa (of non-violence). Once considering abortion, the Hindu approach is to settle on the action that may do least damage to any or all involved: the mother and father, the baby and society.