The Karma of Choice

This is about abortion.

While the Buddha did not give a discourse specifically about this topic, I think the views expressed here are consistent with the Buddha's Five Precepts.

The First Precept is, "to abstain from taking life."

What life? All life.

Is abortion a violation of this Precept? I believe that it is; and as such it carries a Karmic consequence. However, I also believe that allowing executions (for which Texas is infamous), and murders with hand guns (16,000 annually) and deaths due to lack of health insurance (20,000 annually) and death due to an illegal occupation (in Iraq, hundreds of thousands) all carry Karmic consequence.

So people perform (or allow) unskillful and unbeneficial acts all of the time. Even those who rail about the "sanctity" of life, while ignoring many forms of "sanctified" killing.

So why is abortion the taking of life? From what I can gather, Buddhists believe that life begins at conception. (We also take a longer view that life began around 4 billion years ago, and that it has been manifested in many ways.)

However, Buddhists would not impose the First Precept exclusively on the female who is faced with this choice. The First Precept applies to us all, including the killing that we do nothing to prevent (by allowing an unjustified war for example).

All killing has a consequence. When someone we care about dies, we attend a funeral service. Perhaps all deaths should be viewed with this same solemnity.