Written for the AQA syllabus by Upeksacitta (Robert Ellis), member of the Western Buddhist Order and a former Head of RS.
Buddhism and Abortion
Spiritual Instrumentalism and rebirth
To begin with it is important to clarify an aspect of the Buddhist attitude to human life. Human life, as in other religions, is often seen as vitally important, even sacred. However, the reason for this is not that God has created it, but because a human birth provides a precious opportunity to gain enlightenment (which is very much more difficult if you are not human, e.g. an animal, a god, or a hungry ghost). So human life is valuable, but instrumentally valuable, i.e. as a means to an end. That end is enlightenment, not an ordinary worldly end, so this view could be called spiritual instrumentalism.
When you apply this to abortion and put it together with traditional Buddhist belief in rebirth, this means that abortion is generally wrong, for the reason that it interferes with a human rebirth and thus prevents that being seeking enlightenment. Rebirth is usually believed to begin at conception, when the consciousness from the previous life (known as the garbha), craving a new rebirth, attaches itself to the fertilised egg [In the Theravada, this is seen as an instantaneous transfer from the previous body, but the Mahayana sees the transfer as occurring via an intermediate state (in Tibetan Buddhism known as the bardo) between death and rebirth, in which the consciousness wanders, eventually seeking new rebirth because of its fear of the apparent non-existence it encounters. [See The Tibetan Book of the Dead]. So there is no doubt in traditional Buddhism that abortion is the killing of a person.
The First Precept
The killing of a person is obviously against the First Precept. Abortion thus appears to be murder according to most traditional Buddhism. The Vinaya rules view a monk who has deliberately assisted a woman in having an abortion as having committed a very grave offence requiring him to leave the monastic sangha.
Nevertheless, in practice how bad the offence of abortion is does seem to depend upon the age of the foetus. Just as killing a more developed animal is taken to be worse than killing an insect, an early abortion, although still the killing of a person, is not as bad as a late abortion. This reflects the spiritual instrumentalism of Buddhism, where a human life is seen as very valuable, but this does not necessarily mean that all human life is equally valuable. Buddhism has strong reasons for avoiding killing of any sort, and clearly recognises abortion as killing, but these reasons are not based on a single special status for all human beings like the idea of the Image of God in Christianity.
The Middle Way
If you apply the Middle Way to abortion a more flexible position is likely to emerge. On one side of the debate is the appeal to the rights of the foetus alone, on the other the rights of the woman over her own body. Both of these positions are strongly defended, and each side refuses to accept the basic assumptions of the other. A calm look at the issues probably involves not just accepting either set of assumptions completely, but trying to take into account both the position of a pregnant woman with an unwanted child, and the status of the foetus. Probably neither the idea that the foetus is just part of the woman’s body, nor that it is a completely separate person, are totally correct.
If the desire to have an abortion is powerful in some circumstances, due to the need, say, for a woman to avoid her life’s ambitions being thwarted by an unwanted child, then it may not be appropriate to simply repress that desire in the name of duty. However, there are also many implications of having an abortion which might not be appreciated by a woman who simply justifies her desire for an abortion by saying she has a right over her own body: for example, the unfulfilled potential life of the foetus, and her own possible sense of loss and guilt.
So, one cannot rule out the possibility that someone giving the Middle Way priority in their interpretation of Buddhism might support abortion in some cases, but this would probably be after considering all the alternatives and ruling out other possibilities such as adoption. But this would probably mean also giving the Middle Way priority over traditional rebirth beliefs as well as the First Precept. Only a small number of radical Western Buddhists would be likely to take this line, with most Buddhists even in the West more likely to rely on traditional deontological principles and teachings.
Research
Find out about the Japanese practice of mizuko kuyo and make brief notes. Use at least one of the following sources:
Contemporary Buddhist Ethics ed. Keown p.154-161
An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics Harvey p.332-341
Internet (search “mizuko kuyo”. Avoid sites with numerous question marks in the initial search results, which will be largely in Japanese!)
Make brief notes on the main points (not more than one side).
Discuss what this tells you about attitudes to abortion in Buddhism.
Overall discussion
What do you think a Buddhist attitude to abortion should generally be?
Further reading
Contemporary Buddhist Ethics ed. Keown ch.6
An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics Harvey ch.8
On the Internet