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... Obviously, all the beliefs on abortion for every religion can not be discussed in a ten page paper, so this paper will discuss the way abortion is looked upon in general by Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam.
A person that stays in a remote area or on another planet or something might wonder if abortions are a huge problem or why do people even write papers about religion and/or abortions. ... Many causes for unwanted pregnancy the lack of sex education, ignorance, , peer pressure (sex is on TV and everywhere), alcohol and drug use on dates, the reduced influence of religion(Maguire,29). What I mean by the reduced influence on religion is, many teens and young adults are rebelling against the religion that they have been raised in and are either not practicing any religion at all or are trying to find thier own "identity." Also, along with the rebellion against their "traditional religion," many teens and young adults began having sex because the religion says it was bad and that is what the child has heard for most of his or her life. ... The unmarried teen pregnancy rate is alot lower in other countries so the abortion rate is lower as well. ... So in Judisam, abortion is not murder because one can not murder a fetus that is not human. ... A few things I learned when researching the Jew were they take the view that an abortion is justifiable if continuing of a pregnancy might cause the mother severe physical or psychological harm, or when the fetus is judged by competent medical opinion as severely defective. ... Another reason that Jews consider permissiable to commit an abortion is if the birth of the baby is likely to cause some type of emotional stress or physical harm. ... A major factor when deciding on abortion or not is, whether or not the pregnancy is in the first 40 days or not. ... Jewish tradition is sensitive to the sanctity of life, and does not permit abortion on demand. However, it sanctions abortion under some circumstances because it does not regard the fetus as an autonomous person. ... Early Christians lived under Roman law which permitted both abortion and infanticide. ... Given the generally ineffective or dangerous methods of abortion available at the time, unwanted children were sometimes carried to term by Roman women, and abandoned to die of exposure. Unlike infanticide, to which the early Christians reacted with intervention and strongly opposed teaching, it is less certain how the earliest Christians regarded abortion. Some argue that writings against infanticide are sometimes mistaken for anti-abortion teaching. Others believe that these works provide evidence that early Christians saw no difference in principle, between abortion and infanticide. The four gospels offer no statements about abortion as such, and offer no new prohibitions. Many early Christian writers condemned abortion more explicitly. ... Practise no magic, sorcery, abortion, or infanticide . ... " By the third century, abortion is commonly listed among the crimes of men, but some wonder whether Christians may have allowed exceptions to their teachings against it. ... For example, the Roman Catholic Church--one of the most vocal opponents of abortion--holds that the soul enters the zygote at conception (or a soul is then created). ... Within Christianity there are many views about abortion. ... Abortion should never be used as a method of birth control, they say. In the more traditional religious view, an acceptable limited means of practicing birth control would be to abstain from intercourse outside of marriage; commonly, "natural family planning" and sterilization are advocated for those for whom other forms of birth control are forbidden by religion, although the Catholic Church also frowns on sterilization if its purpose is solely as contraception and not for other health reasons.
While the Orthodox do not share Catholicisms objections to all contraception, they agree that life begins at conception, and that abortion is the taking of a human life. ...
Protestant views on abortion vary considerably. In Evangelical churches, especially in the United States, the view is widely held that abortion is infanticide and therefore always wrong. ... The Bible contains no specific prohibition on abortion, although several passages are widely held to indicate that life begins at conception, in which case a ban on abortion follows logically. Few Protestant churches agree with the principle of abortion on demand.
Approximate Word count = 3593
Approximate Pages = 14.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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