Religious Opinions and Views on Abortion Essay

The Biblical understanding of life isn?t the only religious argument that opposes abortion and its practice. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and many other world faiths have a similar stance on the topic at hand. Hinduism claims that the soul enters the embryo at the time of conception and abortion should hence be outlawed except in the case of rape or incest. Buddhism takes a similar stance and claims abortion is ?murdering?, yet also states that each case should be individually analyzed. Islam considers abortion as a moral crime and sees life (its start finish) as the jurisdiction of God. Islamic law states that abortion is illegal except in those situations in which the woman?s life is in jeopardy. The question that arises after examining these numerous perspectives is how can these practices which violate or threaten our fundamental beliefs be tolerated? The critics of the ant-abortion perspective, ?pro-choice?, have arguments of their own. First and foremost they argue that biblical law and its perspectives are codes of life for believers and in a pluralistic society this view shouldn?t be a reference or a deciding factor. One could imagine how it would be to have another foreign view imposed on us so why would anyone impose their views on others or the society at large? Other pro-choice arguments have went to claim that abortion isn?t immoral because morality is subjective hence people decide on their own what is

Nowadays, in this world, there are a lot of problems that can make tremendous conflicts for human beings. They are very complicated and bring a lot of argument and nobody knows what the exact answer is. They also have pros and cons. One of the most complex problems is abortion. This is due to moral and ethical values which we all have. The majority of us are Christians or are brought up in that kind of ambiance which means that as small children we were taught values that are based on the bible such as that famous phrase “Thou shall not kill”. This phrase relates to this topic because an abortion is the murder of a human being.

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.

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

“Catholic teaching on abortion and maternal-fetal care is rooted in centuries of moral tradition, as are many values and principles that ground

Much of the ethical debate stemming from this topic lies with the issue of personhood. Personhood is a concept that defines what is it is that makes a person a “person”. There is no established criteria for this concept and it can vary depending on one’s belief. Patil, Dode & Ahirrao (2014), argue that the concept of personhood is the bridge that connects the fetus with the right to life. If one considers the fetus a person then ethically abortion is wrong. If the fetus is not a person then abortion is ethically acceptable. The issue on personhood mirrors the subjectivity of abortion debate.

To begin it is important to understand halakha which is the jewish law that governs the status of an unborn fetus and whether or not abortion can occur. First off I will be discussing Rabbi David Novak from University of Toronto’s, short paper titled “Abortion”, in this article Rabbi David Novak takes a neutral stance and states that there are two sides to the argument of abortion in Judaism. Rabbi David Novak starts by stating that the most common belief in modern Judaism is as follows ,“On one side are those who see the fetus as "a human within a human" (Sanhedrin 57b, re Genesis 9:6). On the other side are those who regard the child as a human person only after it emerges from the womb (Rashi on Sanhedrin 72b, re Ohalot 7.6); before that, it is simply a part of the mother's body.” (Novak).

Looking at abortion from a religious viewpoint, abortion is a mortal sin. Taking the life of a human being is the greatest sin a human can commit. If it is not acceptable to take the life of a 5 year old, an 18 year old, or a 50 year old, then why is it acceptable to take the life of a human who hasn’t even had the chance to live yet? The point is it shouldn’t be. Taking a life, no matter what the age is, is morally wrong.

In fact, that is notably why Pope John II, Encyclical letter the Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) is more suited for this discussion because not only it is synthesized with biblical texts but John Paul elucidated his suppositions with Biblical imageries which provided foundations against abortion based on the Catholic Tradition.

When faced with the choice of life or death, most people would choose to live. In fact, most would not want someone else making that decision for them. They would claim that as a living and independent entity it is solely their choice as to whether they continue to live or not. While this concept may seem fairly straightforward, there seems to be some great debate when it is applied to abortion. For many, they will maintain that the fetus has the right to life no matter the situation. There are some who will argue that abortion is morally permissible in specific circumstances and there are even those that will claim that abortion is always permissible. Why is there such a great divide? A major factor that plays a part in this is whether abortion involves more than one life. Because determining the beginning point of life is such a complex and emotional debate, there will be the same allowance in this paper as there was in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion”. As she eloquently put it “I propose then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception” (p. 721). This will allow for a look into the moral debate of abortion from a more grounded stage. As discussed early in Thomson’s paper, most of the debate on abortion rests on whether the fetus is alive or not. Whereas the focus should be on the many other aspects of pregnancies that may lead to a mother wanting an abortion.

Even though majority of Catholics are against abortion but there are still some percentage of Catholics who has a different perspective to abortion like In Roman law, Abortion was not a huge problem because an infant did not have legal status until accepted by the pater familias, the head of the family, until accepted, the infant was

Most of us know that the Roman Catholic church teaches that life begins at conception, and yet most of us don't know that this is a relatively recent change. It wasn't until 1869 that Pope Pius IX decreed that "ensoulment" takes place at conception. Up until then, the Catholic church had taught that "life" begins at 40 days gestation for a male and 80 days for a female, and therefore abortions before those 40 or 80 day periods were not viewed as murder. (Gehrmann)

Abortion is always argued with different cases and play a main role in medical ethics (blackwell.,p291).It is evidently reasonable for some to argue that in moral situation, abortion is a murder and it should be illegal, while others may claim that abortion is woman’s right when concerning on autonomy ( The abortion debate in Australia). Opponents of making abortion legal claim that abortion is a kind of murder on extend of moral situation. It is always regarded as a sin to kill a person who is no aggressor in most moral communities (new ethics 1). Fetus is a biologically human as it is not just a part of the mothers, such as a lung or a kidney. On the contrary, it is obvious that fetus is human due to he or she has genetic code of human and human parents as well (abortion myth p5). Moreover, it has potentiality to be a person with primary moral worth (text book p210-211). As Gillion (new ethics) pointed out, every person has his right to life, especially he is not an aggressor. This point is also been pointed by (Rebecca and john,Blackwell p204), “embryos has a right to life” .The fetus is innocent and

Abortion becomes especially evil when the bond between mother and child is broken and it is being used as an alternative birth control when humans cannot control their irresponsible sexual hungers. If beings are responsible enough to be sexually active, they should also be responsible enough to accept

Abortion as an Ethical Issue In recent years, abortion has become one of the world’s most discussed ethical issues. This has made a huge impact on both men and women’s lives. There are many different views on abortion dating back from the Old Testament to the present day. I intend to show you all of abortion’s conventional arguments.