Regarding abortion I hereby state my stance, since this is an
issue which I believe I should speak out:
I disagree on abortion even to the point that the child may be
defective or of low intelligence.
There are ways to get around this, by for example, letting your
child be adopted by someone else if one really cannot take care of
the child. But if I were the person, I would feel the
responsibility to simply raise the child.
Anyway the ultimate descision lies on the person... I simply say
what I know.
IMHO and scriptually speaking, Abortion is un-buddhist. Has
anyone seen the procedure of abortion? It is very cruel and and
images are so gruesome.
They use a loop shaped steel knife to slice the baby in parts (the
hands, limbs, the body etc) and later take the dead baby out. It's
the most horrible medical procedure on Earth and I've seen it on
video tape. And in the Video, it is said that modern equipments
detected that even the 1st stage (1~3 months) the baby could move
and have heart beat, which means that it is definitely
sentient.
Even if the child is of low mental capability, or have some organ
defects/etc, it is a karma and responsibility that the parents must
take even though it takes a lot of courage. More so are those whose
babies are healthy! At most, give the baby away for adoption (which
is only last-resort). I'm sure there are many people out there who
have trouble making babies and are looking forward to adopt a
child!
I would like to share a with you a true story which was told by a
Venerable. There was a Venerable who had the powers to know a
person's previous existence. There was a couple who had a child
with low mental capabilities and they asked the venerable why was
that so. The Venerable answered - that child of yours was a drug
lord in the previous life and has caused much mental delusions and
intoxications to others, and therefore that was his karma. The
parents then asked abruptly, if that was the case then why were
they affected too? (to have the responsibility to take care of that
child). The Venerable continued, "let me finish explaining. You two
were his accomplice in selling the drugs while he was the
mastermind and therefore it was your karmic consequence for having
him as your child." Therefore I think whatever child was borned,
that was his karma, by karmic association. He should accept it,
give extra love and patience to bringing up their child.
The abortion rates are simply unacceptable. I can't imagine myself
being one of the babies subject to the cruel and torturous abortion
procedures.
Those who had abortions, there are a few suggestions by Buddhist
Venerables for karmic clearance: Do daily repentance*, help promote
anti-killing, anti-abortion, through any means, and transference of
merits (accumulated throughout one's entire life) to the deceased
foetus.
I would encourage people to know more about abortion -
those who are not weak hearted can watch the whole abortion
procedure (Warning: very gruesome images!): http://old.abortionno.org/realaudio/hrdtruthdsl.rm
less gruesome alternative which explains accurately the abortion
procedures, etc ~ "Pro Life Doctor Speaks Out"
http://www.abortiontv.com/Movies/ProLifeDoctorsSpeakOut.htm -
information about the video
working video links (outdated links on that page):
http://old.abortionno.org/realaudio/hrdtruthdsl.rm
http://old.abortionno.org/realaudio/hrdtruthdsl.rm
*Repentance verses:
All the evil karma that I have committed in the past,
Arising from my aeons of greed, anger and ignorance,
Committed by my body, speech and mind,
Now I repent before the Buddha.
Ideally for repentance practise is to chant 108 times, each time
bowing down to the Buddha, and regularly.