The debate about abortion, particularly as connected to health care reform, has been characterized as a “conservative” versus “liberal” debate. What is missed in that approach is the fact that the foundational theologies among Jews, Muslims, and even many otherwise “conservative” Christians are more nuanced and complicated than the simplistic and absolutist stands taken by the “C Street” Democrats and their supporters.
The recently passed House health care bill might be paving the way to enact religious discrimination into law; on the important and fundamental issues of life and health, many religious Americans will be unable to live and act according to their own religious consciences and beliefs.
Representative Bart Stupak’s last-minute abortion amendment, supported by the direct lobbying of some Roman Catholic bishops, will have the effect of removing the possibility of abortion from the American health care system, even in cases where the health and life of the mother is at risk. It goes beyond current law and practice, and inserts the theological views of a vocal religious minority as a roadblock to the religious beliefs and practices of many Americans.
Ensoulment, the Moment the Soul and Body are Joined
The Jewish tradition values life. The biblical commandment to “be fruitful and multiply,” repeated over ten times, is taken as one of the most important commandments among all varieties of Jews, and the ritual importance of parenting is central to a Jewish life. Nevertheless, abortion is neither forbidden nor regarded as murder in the Rabbinic Jewish system. In Judaism, the fetus does not have the status of “person” with a separate juridical “personhood” until its head emerges from the womb. In the Mishnah, the foundational work of Rabbinic law, we are told: “If a woman suffers difficult labor in childbirth, the fetus must be cut up in her womb and brought out piece by piece, for her life takes precedence over its life. If [however] its greater part has [already] come out, it must not be touched, for the [claims of one] life can not supersede [that of another] life.” (Oholoth 7:6) On the basis of this, rabbis have consistently argued that the health of the mother must take precedence over the fetus. This position was clearly expounded by one of the most famous rabbis, Moses Maimonides.
As additional evidence that the fetus is not a person, it cannot receive gifts, and if aborted or lost by miscarriage, it cannot receive a Jewish name or a Jewish funeral. Rabbinic discussions of when the soul enters the fetus are not part of the conversations about abortion in Judaism. The rabbis were interested in ensoulment, the moment that the soul and the body were joined, but there was no agreement about the issue. And, the soul in Judaism is pure soul and immortal whether joined to the body or not and is not entangled in anything like the Christian notion of “Original Sin.” Most rabbis agree that trivial or material reasons for abortion are to be condemned, but that abortion for the life and health of the mother is both permissible and mandated. Anything that limits this mandate restricts the Jewish mother from acting in a fully Jewish way.
Looking at Muslim beliefs about abortion, we see that there are many different views, just as there are among Jews and Christians. The Qur’an condemns murder, as “Do not kill a life that Allah has made sacred, except for just reasons,” (6:151 or 4:29) but does not mention abortion. It does prohibit killing children when there is not enough food to provide for them (17:31), but Muslim theologians and jurists have interpreted that to mean that it is not permissible to kill a fetus once it has become a “child,” that is, a person.
In Sunni Islam, with its four different legal “denominations,” there is no agreement about when that is. Among Hanafi Muslims, the legal practice common in the Middle East and Central Asia, ensoulment takes place 120 days after conception. Up to that point, abortion is allowed for good cause. This is true of the Shafi’i Muslims of Southeast Asia and East Africa. For the Malikis in North Africa and the Hanbalis of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, ensoulment occurs at day 40, with abortions allowed up to that time. On the basis of Qur’an 2:233, which states that the mother should not be made to suffer on account of the child, many Muslim jurists allow abortion even after the period of ensoulment, particularly if the life of the mother is threatened, since the life of the already living mother is viewed to have precedence in the decision about the lesser of two evils.
As with Judaism, abortion for Muslims is not meant to be used for birth control or venal reasons, and like Judaism, Muslim thinkers recognize a nuanced and progressive development of the fetus into personhood. This nuance, as well as the vicissitudes of human life, is taken into account by Islamic religious law and practice. As with Judaism, the absolutist positions reflected in the House bill would discriminate against Muslims in America living a full religious life.
Views on abortion vary among the world’s Buddhists. Japanese Buddhists generally hold a more open view of abortion, and women will often participate in memorial ceremonies for the fetus lost by abortion or miscarriage. Tibetan Buddhists, both in Tibet and in exile, on the other hand, regard abortion as destructive of innocent life and contrary to Buddhist principles. The Dalai Lama has said that abortion is “negative,” but he also said in a 1993 interview that “abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance.” Similarly, Hindus hold that the destruction of a fetus prevents a soul from participating in its karmic journey, but, following the principle of doing the least harm, abortion when it involves saving the life of the mother is held by many Hindus as permissible. Also, some Hindus hold that personhood only begins at the age of three months, a doctrine similar to the Muslim and Jewish notions of ensoulment.
The Primacy of Individual Conscience
Finally, it should be remembered that on this issue there is no unanimity among Christians either now or in the historical past. St. Augustine held that ensoulment occurred sometime after the beginning of the growth of the fetus and that abortion was not homicide. He, like other theologians of his time, was more concerned with whether abortion was being used to cover up the greater sin of fornication or adultery. In the late sixteenth century, Pope Sixtus V held that both contraception and abortion were homicide and punishable by excommunication, but his immediate successor, Pope Gregory XIV, held that this view was in conflict with Church practice and the theological views of ensoulment. Only in modern times has the Roman Catholic Church generally condemned all forms of abortion, even therapeutic abortions meant to save the life of the mother.
Protestant Christians vary widely in their views on abortion, and often hold views that are not reflected in the pronouncements of their church’s hierarchy, thus following the principle of the primacy of individual conscience. As an example, Episcopalians reflect a wide range, with some holding a position like that of the Church of England that abortion is morally wrong but permissible in the case of saving the life of the mother. Others stand in opposition to any state or federal law that would interfere with the woman’s right to decide about the termination of the pregnancy.
If the House health care bill is allowed to stand and becomes the basis for new legislation, religious Americans across the spectrum of faiths will be subjected to limitations that will contravene their faith’s most well-considered and cherished views about the major questions of life, reproduction, and freedom of religious conscience; freedoms imagined by our nation’s founders as central to the nature of our country.
Tags: abortion, buddhism, christianity, dalai lama, diversity, hinduism, islam, judaism, maimonides, religion
Morality, in Catholic teaching, is based on reason and in order to be in communion with Catholic teachings, one must accept the rationality of ethics as taught by the Catholic faith that is in a long tradition of ethical philosophy dating from Aristotle.
A clear distinction should always be made between faith and morals. Faith, in something like the Trinity,for example, is a special knowledge that we accept because it has been revealed to us by God Himself. Something we could not know without His Word. Morals are something anyone should be able to understand, however, and the Church gives guidance and expects obedience because lots of people just don't have the smarts to get it sometimes. You are one of those people.
There are a thousand reasonable positions against abortion. By the way, the Catholic Church has never condemned abortion when it came to the life of the mother, ever, period. I use past tense because that case almost never exists today. You simply have misrepresented Catholic teaching.
The beauty of using reason in moral disputes is that it is the only truly objective criteria. God, who is a supremely rational being, never asks us to do something that is unreasonable, like killing for the sake of our religion, which is something which you, I am afraid, are practicing as we speak. Sacrificing unborn children on the altars of your secular ideology, that distinctly American secularism that is pragmatic to its core, is a bizarre reinactment of Aztec and all other pagan religions of the past. One of the great contributions Judaism made to the civilization of the world was to condemn child sacrifice to which the story of Abraham, who almost sacrificed his own son Isaac, but was stopped by the angel of God, attests. God was not going to ask him to do this irrational thing and the story is a mighty example of what it meant to be a Jew and not a pagan. We should not accept the concept of a deity that would ask us to do irrational things in the name of religion such as was done at Fort Hood last week. It is a challenge, because our reason forces us to find other solutions that are not in conflict with what we may like to do for the sake of expediency-- like abortion. How about a device that could be implanted into the navel of every woman of child bearing age, if she so desired, that could "sound" when she ovulated. There's a good start.
You make several factual errors, which hurt the efficacy of your argument, but interestingly highlight the importance of the original poster's article.
To begin with the error that most directly addresses the original article - your rhetoric gets in the way of your reading of the article. The article was not directly focusing on American secular ideology (whatever that may look like) but rather using a global, multicultural perspective to examine what sorts of views on abortion exist in various interpretations of various religions. The anti-choice movement has limited conversation about religion differences in topics about women's rights, and the author of the article was bringing those previously ignored voices back into the conversation. There are religious differences, even within denominations.
Moving on to an error in fact: It is factually untrue that a pregnancy that threatens the life of the pregnant woman "almost never exists today." Approximately 1/100 pregnancies are tubal/etopic pregnancies that run the risk of a tubal rupture and death. Pre-eclampsia develops in approximately 10% of pregnancies and can develop into eclampsia if not carefully monitored, a life damaging and life threatening situation.
It is equally factually incorrect to say that the RCC has never condemned abortion in the case of the life of the woman. This summer the RCC excommunicated the health professionals and the mother of a 9 year old Brazilian girl who had been raped by her stepfather and impregnated with twins. The stepfather was not excommunicated. Reason and compassion would dictate that a 9 year old little girl's life is prima facie at risk when carrying twin fetuses, and that the individuals who saved her life ought to be thanked, not cast from god's reach for all eternity.
Your nonsensical and overt racism/religious intolerance crossed over from the realm of mistake and error and into a realm of incoherence. There is no evidence that the tragedy at Fort Hood was religiously motivated, and it does your argument little good to create racist/intolerant non sequitars.
A greater sense of actual empathy would inform your reason greatly. That there are religious disputes around abortion, not all against abortion. Responding to that argument would have been an interesting choice.
Why focus solely on abortion? It's not like that's the ONLY practice that might be condoned by religion and condemned by the federal government. It's not like thats the ONLY practice that is the victim of religious discrimination. SLAVERY TOO! I know of a couple of religions that not only condone, but actively support the institution of slavery. Was the federal government discriminating against religion when it abolished slavery? Do you really want to go there?
All the arguments seem to be the self-centered ethical basis of the primacy of a woman's choice versus the unprovable opinion that humanness (read soul) starts at conception.
The debate on abortion is merely opinion. Moral values are based on either self-centered, God-based or society-based non-provable basic assumptions. For the Catholic viewpoint let me excerpt from the free ebook series “And Gulliver Returns” (http://andgulliverreturns.info) The Abortion chapter in Book 4 elaborates the pros and cons of the 3 ethical assumptions. Let me attempt to summarize the changing Catholic position. From the 13th Century the views of St. Thomas Aquinas, that male embryos got their souls about 4 weeks after conception, females somewhat later, were the standard. His was a Christianized view of Aristotle’s ideas.
The crux of the modern idea, that the soul is infused at conception, might be traced to St. Paul (Romans 5:12) who started the ball rolling on ‘original sin.’ 500 years later St. Augustine popularized the idea. But the Blessed Virgin was born without original sin, her Immaculate Conception. Pope Pius IX declared this in 1854. Then in 1870 he decided that popes were infallible in church doctrine. So was his pronouncement retroactive?
Recent popes have generally followed Pius’s idea that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception. This brings with it some theological problems. Since many fertilized ova never implant in the uterus what happens to these little souls?
If you are really interested in the question, see the aforementioned chapter. It is done in detail.
Amen
What a waste of minds! 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 (NIV) 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
Waiting to find out who is right until the judgement will be personally unproductive to many. I do not need Islam's, Eastern pantheism's, Judaism's, apostate Christianity's or any other religion's take, life is sacred, to take it risks eternal condemnation, 1 John 3:14-15 (NIV) 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
Is abortion love? Does it bring Glory to God?
1 Corinthians 2:14-15 is completely inane and promotes a rather patronizing attitude. "You're not spiritual, so you're just foolish", not exactly a way to dialog.
So, when is abortion acceptable to you? Rape, incest, threat to a mothers life? What about a "stillborn" (the medical term is spontaneous abortion)? Does god receive any blame for those and diminish his own glory by not being loving?
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