Hinduism's Arguments Against Abortion

were to lose their baby due to an injury by another person, that person needs to pay compensation. Technically speaking this money belongs to the dead child who is to inherit it. Lastly, abortions are only allowed in a certain time frame. Whether this is the required forty days or one hundred twenty days this timeline needs to be followed otherwise a monetary penalty will be placed on the family involved.
Unlike Judaism and Islam, Hinduism does not allow abortion unless the pregnancy could harm the mother. However, there are still minor exceptions to this ban. For Hindus abortion is not allowed as the physical body of the fetus and its soul are considered to be joined from the point of conception. Additionally, according to the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation the fetus is not developing into a person as it is already considered a person from its conception. Therefore, aborting the fetus would be the same as committing murder. However if the fetus and continued pregnancy of the mother will result in harm to the mother, an abortion is allowed. For the most part, Hindu medical ethics stem from the principle of ahimsa or non- violence. Therefore, when faced with the choice of aborting the fetus the family must consider which decision will result in the least amount of people being harmed. It is
because of this reasoning that Hinduism will allow an abortion if it will save the mother’s life.
Since causing harm to the mother is the only exception to abortion there are no other reasons that would justify an abortion.
One of the reasons that abortion is not acceptable in Hinduism is that it deters the mother from doing her duty to her family. It is part of the responsibility of the mother to her family to continue her family line and produce more members into society. However, there are instances that the religious ban on abortion is overruled by a cultural preference for sons. For example, in India there is a preference for sons so there are some instances in which “female feticide” occurs to prevent the birth of girls and increase the chance for the birth of a
boy. Another reason that abortion is not permitted is due to the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation. The doctrine of reincarnation is the repetitive cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Based on this doctrine, abortion deprives the soul of any spiritual progress. It breaks the cycle and the fetus has no chance to live out the life they were destined to live. Additionally, it takes away any chance of the fetus, specifically the soul, to work on its karma. However, there are minor exceptions to this as well. There are some that would argue that because each soul has many lives to live until they break the cycle, aborting the fetus would only take one of those lives.
If the mother does decide to abort the baby for reasons other than protecting herself from harm, she could lose her caste. This is a severe punishment as a Hindu’s caste is everything to them. It encompasses their whole family, their religious beliefs, and different cultural aspects. To lose one’s caste is to lose a huge part of yourself.
Similar to the view of Hindu’s on abortion, Buddhists believe that all life is sacred and that it is wrong to take that away from someone. However though this is a universal Buddhist truth there are still exceptions to this especially between traditional Buddhists and modern Buddhists. Traditional Buddhists do not approve of abortion as it is the deliberate destruction of a life. According to Damien Keown, from an article published in Science and Theology News, “Buddhists believe in rebirth and teaches that individual life begins at conception. The new being, bearing the karmic identity of a recently deceased individual, is therefore as entitled to