Introduction
For a number of centuries and in diverse cultures, women have lent each other a hand to abort. Specialized training on abortion started in the late 1800’s. Abortion became an issue of discussion from the 19th century to date. This is because diverse groups of people, organizations, religions and scholars have different perspectives concerning abortion. In addition it is also defined differently by scholars in various fields. According to Joffe (2000), it is the termination or an end of a pregnancy either naturally or spontaneously commonly known as miscarriage or induced abortion when it is terminated by a physician or by any other medical method. It is the untimely expulsion of the uterine products which consist of the placenta, bag of water and any fetus if present. In the field of law, it’s defined as a medical term for terminating a pregnancy by different methods before the natural term. A research study carried in USA gave some of the reasons for an abortion. These include: instances of rape, incest, physical life and health of the mother, fetal health and “personal choice.” Under the “personal choice” this may include age, economic and sex selection factors (Johnston, 2008).
Discussion
Religion has played a major role in the debate of social issues of our time abortion being one of them. The vocal point of the debate is trying to answer the question of when life begins. However, different religions have voiced different views concerning abortion. In the Biblical point of view, life begins in the womb in accordance to God’s laws concerning humanity. God recognizes a human being before they are born. Isaiah 49:1 says that before he was born, the lord called him. The book of Exodus 21:22-23 gives a description of an instance where a man hits a pregnant woman causing a premature birth. The man has to pay a fine if there is no serious injury but when there are serious injuries to either the mother or child, he is guilty of murder and subject to a death penalty. This law justifies the humanity of the unborn baby and places the child in the same level of an adult being who has caused the miscarriage. Further, in Psalms 139:13-16 says that God created your inmost being and knitted you in your mother’s womb. You are wonderfully and fearfully made and the Lords’ eyes saw your unformed body. All your ordained days were written in the Bible before anyone came into being. The Bible uses same Greek word in unfolding the unborn John the Baptist, newly baby Jesus and the young children brought to Jesus to be blessed in the book of Luke 1: 41-44, 2: 12-16 and 18:15 respectively (Oxtoby & Segal, 2007).
In Jeremiah 20: 15-17, a similar Biblical revelation of humanity of the unborn is depicted. Jeremiah bewails and wishes that he had not been born. He cursed the man who brought the good news and made his father glad for having a son. He wished his father would have killed him while in the mother’s womb which would have been his grave. Several other verses have given evidence and stressed that the unborn child is a human in God’s eyes as we are. One of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on the Mount Sinai by God was, “Thou Shall Not Murder” (Exodus 20:13), refers to both the unborn and the born. In Genesis 9:6, murder is considered a disgrace in the eyes of God since its illegal killing of Gods’ own image.
The Bible uses some themes which are beneficial to all of us. God is the giver of life. From the creation story, He is the one who made us in His own image and not us. Most of the references refer the child as a gift from God which means that each conception is also a gift. For example in Genesis chapter 29 and 30, the Lord opened Leah’s womb after He saw how she was hated. Leah conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. When a person says that God has given them a child, this does not mean that God let that child fall from heaven. They are very sure of the processes of growth and development, birth and other biological processes involved in bringing the child into being (Frank, 1971).
God expects us to treat other people with respect for He is the Lord of life. In Deuteronomy 5:17, God forbids murder and that’s why He punished Cain for killing his own brother Abel (Genesis 4:9). In Genesis 9:4 and Acts 15:20, no one was to eat meat that had blood in it for blood is the life bearer a gift and a Gods’ property. In Jesus’ teachings, He retained the commandment not to kill, and expounded further that we should not be angry, not return bad for bad, but to love our enemies. (Matthew 5:21, 5:38, 5:43). In John 3:16-17, God valued the humans’ life that He offered His only son to die for the sins of the world (Frank, 1971).
Life is worth living if lived closely with and in obedience to God. In the Old Testament, people valued a gift of wealth gotten in obedience and not ill-gotten gain. (Proverbs 28:6). In the New Testament, the human life has nothing to do with worldly riches. Jesus taught the beatitudes and emphasized more on the worlds’ rejects. In Matthew 19:21, we are taught to love the poor. The rich man was punished for disrespecting Lazarus the poor man. It also teaches us on how to treat and value our neighbors as ourselves in the light of the cross (Frank, 1971).
Abortion among the Muslims has some contrivances depending on the region mainly those in abroad. According to Qaradawi, Islam allows prevention of a pregnancy for valid reasons. After the complete formation of the fetus, it’s given a soul. At this stage, abortion is haram and a crime because it is an offense against a complete human being. According to the Islamic Jurists, payment of blood money (diya) is more if the fetus is aborted alive then dies than if it is aborted while dead. Conversely, it can be terminated if the fetus is completely formed but continuation of the pregnancy would adversely affect the mother. This is because the mother is the origin of the fetus, has a well established life with duties and obligations and she is the family pillar unlike the fetus in accordance with the Shariah principle (Qaradawi, 2004).
There are five stages of existence of a being the first being settling of semen and its merger with the woman’s secretions. Abortion at the gestation and further development into a lump is considered a greater crime. The order of magnitude of the crime increases from the time it has acquired the soul, to when creation is complete and finally to when the fetus has been separated from the mother when it’s alive. According to survey conducted by Ebrahim (1989) on Islamic schools there was a dilemma as to when the fetus has equal rights as the mother. This issue is determined by Shari’ahs’ general principle: choosing the lesser of the two evils. The mothers’ life is given priority over the fetus. In general, the Islamic tradition is against abortion. A human being can only be slain if in punishment for murder or spreading corruption on earth, but if life is saved it would be as if the whole of mankind has been saved. (5:32 in Ebrahim, 102). This is a concrete proof that each human being has a right to be born, to be and to live as long as Allah permits. All the Islamic schools regard the fetus as having a right to life and any death sentence to a pregnant woman can only be done after she has given birth. The right to life is wholly in Islam, even in cases of rape or fatal deformity (Ebrahim, 103).
Conclusion
The two religions have same stand against abortion. They both agree that life is God or Allah given and only He has the ultimate authority to take away as He wishes. No one can question Him because He does His own will. A fetus has an equal right to life just as you have and none of us has the right to tamper with it. We should all value humanity and all other Gods’ or Allah’s creation.
Work Cited
Abul Fadl Mohsin Ebrahim. Abortion, Birth Control and Surrogate Parenting: An Islamic Perspective. New York. American Trust Publications, 1989.
Joffe, C. (2000). “Medical Abortion in Social Context.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology vol.183 (2) (2000):S10– S15.
Reasons for abortion in the United States. Robert Johnston, 2008. United Nations Population Division, Abortion Policies: A Global Review, 2008, United Nations (New York, NY), Web.
Willard G. Oxtoby & Alan F. Segal. A Concise Introduction to World Religions. Don Miles, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ethics. New York. The Macmillan Co., 1965.
Daniel Callahan. Abortion: law, choice and morality. Boston. The Macmillan Co., 1970.
Helmut Thelicke. How the World Began. Philadelphia. Fortress Press, 1961.
Michael Frank. Abortion: A Christian Analysis and Perspective. New York. The Macmillan Co., 1971.
Blood-Money, Pregnancy and Newborns. Abortion from an Islamic Perspective. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, 2004. Web.