Abhidhamma: Is an abortion killing a living being?

[BlueLotus]

So, I have a pregnant Buddhist friend who has medical complications with her womb. But she doesn't get an abortion because she says it is against Buddhist vinaya and also it is killing a conscious being and that is bad kamma. Doctors say the fetus might create life risk to her and they encourage her to get rid of it.

I tried to tell her that kamma is intention but she says that according to abhidhamma, there are several types of citta and whatever action carries a reaction type of kamma according to abhidhamma.

Can someone please tell me what this citta business in abhidhamma is? Her husband is worried and tried to talk to several monks. Most of them agreed with her views... It's like she is walking right into her grave

Please help me understand why abortion is against vinaya and bad kamma

[Dhammanando]

Can someone please tell me what this citta business in abhidhamma is?

Can Killing a Living Being Ever Be an Act of Compassion?

[BlueLotus]

Is a fetus a living being?

[Coyote]

I believe that according to the vinaya it is an offense of defeat if an abortion is carried out on account of a monk's recommendation.

You can read the discussion of the rule in BMC 1 pg. 74 onward. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... o/bmc1.pdf

This would explain why monks might be unwilling to recommend abortion.

[Coyote]

Is it possible to remove a foetus without intending to kill or cause an abortion? From an abhidhamma pov would this be one way "around" the situation?

metta to all

[robertk]

http://www.aimwell.org/dilemmas.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Dhammanando]

Is it possible to remove a foetus without intending to kill or cause an abortion? From an abhidhamma pov would this be one way "around" the situation?

I should think that anyone with the medical competence to do this would surely know that his action will bring about the child's death. How then could his intention be anything other than to kill?

The only case I can imagine where this might be so is where the child has developed to the point where he has at least some chance of surviving if delivered prematurely.

[BlueLotus]

So I read the article that you pointed to and I can't help but think this is just one person's commentary and a very biased one. I read the abhidhamma part and it says 5 things need to be there for killing:

1. A sentient being (I don't think a fetas is one)

2. The perception that the thing is a sentient being (again, is it okay for anyone with the belief that a fetas is just a fetas and doesn't accept it is a being??)

4. and 5. the act of killing and the death of the being to complete the act. So, if you do not kill yourself but hire an assassin, the kamma is not that grave as killing with your own hands? Sounds lame

3. An intention to kill - This is up for interpretation. I think the writer has already decided that it is a psychological impossibility to take away a life without the intention to kill and he has driven the article in that direction. In my opinion, an intention is different form awareness and knowledge of the end result. When a doctor takes away a person from a life support machine, he is fully aware that the person will die. But does he remove a patient from the support with a plan or a purpose to kill? Literally it is but if you dig deeper into his psychological process, it is certainly NOT.

Buddhism is supposed to be a science for the mind. I don't accept any person's 1+1=2 kind of interpretation of it. I find it lame that the size of the being matters. So, if I kill an ant with a great deal of ill will and hatred towards the insect, it is still not as bad as unintentionally killing a cow by eating its meat? Nah, doesn't rhyme well with my wisdom faculties.

[BlueLotus]

http://www.aimwell.org/dilemmas.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ahh but then again, Ajhan Brahm says something else.

[chownah]

Consider sentience. Different beings seem to have it in varying degree. How do we know if a being has sentience and to what degree. What is sentience anyway? Could it be that a fetus falls pretty low on the sentience spectrum? Does a fetus suffer when it is aborted? Is the suffering a fetus has when aborted equivalent to the suffering a person has when dieing? The mother's kamma depends on how she grasps these ideas.
chownah

[Dhammanando]

When we see the Pali word satta (Skt. sattva) translated as "sentient being", we shouldn't overstress the word "sentient". It doesn't carry the full sense of the English adjective and its insertion is no more than a translator's device to make it clear that plants, fungi, bacteria, etc., are not included here. Other translations such as "living beings" or simply "beings" don't make this clear.

In short, what we are talking about here are all beings in the 31 planes that are participants in saṃsāric becoming. An unborn child, at every stage of its development, is an example of such a being.

[Dhammanando]

So I read the article that you pointed to and I can't help but think this is just one person's commentary and a very biased one.

Three articles have been linked to — those of Rupert Gethin, and the venerables Pesala and Thanissaro. All three are supportive of your friend's understanding of the Dhamma, and if you read widely you will discover the views expressed by them to be faithful statements of the Theravada Buddhist position, indeed we might say of the pan-Buddhist position, for the Mahayana pandits don't dissent from this view.

It's true, as you remark in another post, that Ajahn Brahmavamso does dissent. According to him the developing foetus only becomes a sentient being some weeks after conception. But he is virtually alone in his dissent and his argument appears to be based upon an idiosyncratic, unorthodox and overly narrow understanding of the phrase "consciousness becomes manifest."

[Dhammanando]

I read the abhidhamma part and it says 5 things need to be there for killing:

1. A sentient being (I don't think a fetas is one)

But your friend does think so and her view is quite in line with the Buddha’s teaching. If the Buddha did not regard foetuses as living beings, then he would not have made it a defeating offence under the third pārājika (killing human beings) for monks to counsel abortion.

2. The perception that the thing is a sentient being (again, is it okay for anyone with the belief that a fetas is just a fetas and doesn't accept it is a being??)

But your friend is not someone who thinks that a foetus is something other than a living being.

4. and 5. the act of killing and the death of the being to complete the act. So, if you do not kill yourself but hire an assassin, the kamma is not that grave as killing with your own hands? Sounds lame

No, you’ve got it the wrong way round. The first precept encompasses both intentional killing by one’s own hand and intentional killing by instigating or hiring another. Of the two, the kamma is more weighty when you hire somebody else to do the killing. For you have still committed the act of intentional killing, but with the aggravating factor that you’ve been the instigator of another’s person’s committing an unwholesome kamma too.

[alan]

Here's a perfect example of getting too caught up in theoretical debate, and ignoring the obvious reality. Seems to me that Mother's life trumps fetus life every time.
The spin-of of this is the 'Rights of the Unborn" argument, which has never made much sense, and is, again, based upon theories, none of which can be proven to have any practical value.

[daverupa]

Up to about five months, there's no fetal viability, which may or may not matter here.

Also, let's all try to read up and become educated discussants, while we're on the subject. This will need to be lensed through Abhidhamma et al, per the OP.