Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- A note on language and pronunciation
- Introduction
- 11 THE SHARED FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHIST ETHICS
- 12 KEY BUDDHIST VALUES
- 13 MAHĀYĀNA EMPHASES AND ADAPTATIONS
- 14 ATTITUDE TO AND TREATMENT OF THE NATURAL WORLD
- 15 ECONOMIC ETHICS
- 16 WAR AND PEACE
- 17 SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA
- 18 ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION
- 19 SEXUAL EQUALITY
- 10 HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER FORMS OF ‘QUEERNESS’
- Glossary and details of historical figures and texts
- List of references
- Useful addresses
- Index of Buddhist texts, schools cultural areas, movements and organizations
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
18 - ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- A note on language and pronunciation
- Introduction
- 11 THE SHARED FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHIST ETHICS
- 12 KEY BUDDHIST VALUES
- 13 MAHĀYĀNA EMPHASES AND ADAPTATIONS
- 14 ATTITUDE TO AND TREATMENT OF THE NATURAL WORLD
- 15 ECONOMIC ETHICS
- 16 WAR AND PEACE
- 17 SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA
- 18 ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION
- 19 SEXUAL EQUALITY
- 10 HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER FORMS OF ‘QUEERNESS’
- Glossary and details of historical figures and texts
- List of references
- Useful addresses
- Index of Buddhist texts, schools cultural areas, movements and organizations
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
Summary
Hard to gain is a human rebirth.
Dhammapada 182EMBRYONIC LIFE
Before discussing abortion, it is appropriate to examine Buddhist views about the nature of life in the womb. In Buddhism's rebirth-perspective, human life is not seen as something that gradually emerges as an embryo develops. Consciousness is not regarded as an emergent property of this process, but is itself seen as one of the conditions for it to occur, as expressed in a passage from the Theravādin collection of Suttas:
‘Were consciousness (viññāṇaṃ), Ānanda, not to fall into the mother's womb, would the sentient body (nāma-rūpaṃ) be constituted there?’ ‘It would not, Lord.’ ‘Were consciousness, having fallen into the mother's womb, to turn aside from it, would the sentient body come to birth in this present state?’ ‘It would not, Lord.’ (D. 11.62–3)
Thus the flux of consciousness from a previous being is a necessary condition for the arising and development in the womb of a body (rūpa) endowed with mental abilities which amount to sentience (nāma, literally ‘name’): feeling, identification, volition, sensory stimulation and attention (S. 11.3–4). The monastic code recognizes human life as starting at conception; for the minimum age for full ordination, twenty (Vin. 1.78), is reckoned from then, not from leaving the womb:
When in his mother's womb, the first mind-moment has arisen, the first consciousness appeared, his birth is (to be reckoned as) from that time. […]
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- An Introduction to Buddhist EthicsFoundations, Values and Issues, pp. 311 - 352Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000