It's ok to ask. Actually we should never kill even the tiniest
insect because it plants the seeds of killing into our 8th
consciousness. These seeds can be very dangerous and in a later
time or even next life it may develope into something more
dangerous - killing large animals, then eventually killing human
beings will be increasingly easy. So we should never plant seeds of
violence in our 8th consciousness.
Compassion should come with wisdom, and although we may think we
are compassionate to the animals we must think again. The animal
has been reborn in the animal realm due to his karma. It is very
very unlikely that the insect will become reborn in a virtuous
realm just because you killed it. In fact insects will usually stay
in that realm for millions of lifetimes because it is very hard for
them to ascend out of that realm. The best thing you can do is to
chant for that insect, dedicating merits to it, it will be a much
wiser thing and much more useful to do because the merit u dedicate
to the anima will help the animal to ascend out of the animal realm
sooner, and furthermore, we are creating bad karma for ourselves by
killing.
In Buddhism, abortion is killing. Aborting children for whatever
reasons will have karma, and one must consider the situation wisely
before making any descision. Even if you made the descision to
abort because the circumstance you must understand there is still
karm. In such a case, those who had abortions, there are a few
suggestions by Buddhist Venerables for karmic clearance: Do daily
repentance* (see the URL at the bottom), help promote anti-killing,
anti-abortion, through any means, and transference of merits
(accumulated throughout one's entire life) to the deceased foetus.
\ We must try our best to avoid abortion. For me, if the baby can
still live, even if the baby has some defects, or even low IQ, etc,
we must shower even more love for the child. Christians have a good
point we should learn from. That is, even if their baby has defects
etc, they will not stop loving the child because of that. Because
they submit to God, whatever God gives him is the best for them.
Whatever child that is born, we must give our love and care to the
fullest for him. In Buddhism we do not have a God theory, but
whatever that comes is our karma, and the child's karma, and we
must do our best to take care of the child.
Another point is children are born into a family for a few
reasons.
See http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol7no1c.htm
Excerpt:
5 types of offspring
It is normal to expect kinship between parents and their children.
Loving parents and filial children are the basis for a warm and
harmonious relationship. However, there are exceptions to this
norm. According to Buddhist sutras, there are five types of
conditions under which people are born to their parents:
1. They are reborn into the family to pay back their indebtedness
to the parents. For example, the child is filial, obedient and
diligent in his studies or at work. Regardless of the financial
situation, he would provide for the needs of his parents.
2. They are here to seek the return of what their parents owed them
in the past. This might be due to the parents owing unsettled
matters or debts to the child incurred in their past lives. Thus,
not only does the child not bring fortune to the family this life,
but the parents have to spend a lot of money on him. For example,
the child may be sick very often thereby causing the parents to
incur a huge amount of medical expenses, or other situations where
the parents have to spend a lot of money on him and driving them to
financial difficulties. Some of them may even cause the family to
break-up or the death of family members. Some may become
incapacitated and cause the family to run into huge debts or even
bankruptcy. These types of children are reborn to their parents to
seek the return of their dues.
3. A child may be born into a family to return the benevolence that
his parents had accorded him in his past lives. In this lifetime,
everything is smooth sailing for the child and he is successful in
his studies and career to bring honour and pride to the family.
Hence, he is here to repay kindness of his parents.
4. They are here to seek revenge on their parents. Perhaps there
might be hostility between the two parties in their past lives. The
parents might have hit the person; insulted him, ill-treated him,
or treated him unfairly. He could not forgive and forget. For
example, he would beat up his parents, ill-treat them, or even to
take their lives in return for what they owed him in the past
lives. Hence, he is reborn into the family to seek revenge.
5. They merely borrow the mother's womb to be born into this world.
The great sages and virtuous men, monks and nuns, the Bodhisattva
path cultivators and the Buddha belong to this category.
If there is hostility between parents and their children, the
parents have to sincerely repent and perform meritorious deeds in
the name of the children. Parents should not bear hatred and anger
but to treat them with compassion and loving-kindness. Then, the
situation would slowly improve and the animosity would soon
dissolve.
