Buddhism and the Morality
of Abortion
By Michael G. Barnhart
---0o0---
Kingsborough, CUNY
MBarnhart@kbcc.cuny.edu
(I)
It is quite clear from a variety of sources that
abortion has been severely disapproved of in the Buddhist tradition. It is
also equally clear that abortion has been tolerated in Buddhist Japan and
accommodated under exceptional circumstances by some modern Buddhists in
the U.S. (1) Those sources most often cited that prohibit abortion
are Theravaadin and ancient. By contrast, Japanese Buddhism as well as the
traditions out of which a more lenient approach emerges are more recent
and Mahaayaana traditions. Superficially, the situation seems not unlike
that of Roman Catholicism, where abortion, though disapproved of in the
strongest terms by Church authorities drawing on the canonical tradition,
is nonetheless practiced by a large number of devout Catholics and
defended by at least a few, sometimes renegade, theologians and
philosophers, as acceptable in some circumstances. Therefore, if it makes
sense to speak of a possible Catholic defense of abortion, then it makes
equally good sense to speak of a Buddhist defense of abortion, a defense
made in full knowledge that one is swimming against the tide of
conventional interpretation but still within the tradition.
In other words, I am not so much concerned to show that
Buddhism has, does, or will support the choice to abort or one's right to
make such a choice as I am to show that such a choice can be made in a
manner consistent with Buddhist principles. Buddhism itself, therefore,
speaks with more than one moral voice on this issue, and furthermore, the
nature of the moral debate may have important applications for similarly
situated others and constitute an enlargement of the repertoire of
applicable moral theories and rationales.
(II)
One of the strongest antiabortion cases from a Buddhist
perspective emerges in Damien Keown's wonderfully thorough and insightful
analysis of Buddhism's bioethical ramifications in the book Buddhism and
Bioethics. (2) Keown argues that the preponderance of the Buddhist
traditon is overwhelmingly antiabortionist. In support, he develops two
lines of argument. The first relies on the nearly uniform rejection of
abortion, especially in ancient Theravaada texts, what Keown regards as
the core of the tradition. Here I believe he is on fairly firm ground
although I am uncertain regarding his preference for what he calls
"Buddhist fundamentalism" and his concomitant emphasis on
"scriptural authority." (3) The second line of argument
concerns his interpretation of these sources and their connection to the
basic tenets of Buddhism regarding the nature of personal identity and the
skandhas, karma and rebirth, life and death.
I find Keown's discussion of the sources that directly
relate to the question of abortion fairly convincing. Especially in the
Pi.takas, or in Buddhagosa's commentaries, it seems quite clear that the
practice of abortion is considered unacceptable. However, as Keown points
out, (92) the cases dealt with involve women seeking abortions for
questionable, perhaps self-serving, reasons including "concealing
extramarital affairs, preventing inheritances, and domestic rivalry
between co-wives." In short, if these are the paradigm examples of
abortion, then the case is heavily biased against the practice. Keown does
comment in an endnote that Buddhism would surely have sided with a woman
seeking an abortion in order to save her own life, a position he
attributes to Hindu jurists of the time. Why Buddhism would make such an
exception is unclear, especially given the case Keown builds against the
practice. For if abortion is always in violation of the First Precept
against taking life, especially such karmically advanced life as that of a
developing human being, then why should the mother's imperiled condition
make a difference? Why prefer one life to another?
One might, of course, argue that abortion in such
circumstances was a form of self-defense. Indeed, Keown seems to feel that
killing in self-defense is not itself an example of taking life (again
indicated in an endnote). But pregnancy and its associated dangers present
a wholly different kind of situation from that of self-defense. In the
case of a fetus, if the mother's life is in jeopardy, it is not because
the fetus is in some manner attacking the mother as in most such cases.
Rather, the mother's medical condition renders her unable to carry a fetus
to term or give birth safely. Even if it is the fetus's medical condition
that jeopardizes the mother, it is in no way analogous to a physical
attack. The fetus is not responsible for its medical condition and in no
way intends to harm its mother. Hence, the question why such special
exceptions to a general prohibition on abortion are acceptable remains
unanswered. Correlatively, if such exceptions can be made, why not make
them in other, perhaps less threatening but still serious, circumstances?
Yet whether or not early Buddhism's condemnation of
abortion is fully rationalized or not, the fact is that the scriptural
evidence is against it. However, when it comes to connecting the apparent
condemnation of abortion with the deeper inspirations of Buddhism, the
case is less compelling and perhaps affords a toehold in the Theravaada
tradition for a different evaluation of abortion. Keown argues that the
First Precept and its prohibition against taking life is part of a much
larger reverence for life, life being one of Buddhism's three basic goods
-- life, wisdom and "friendship" (Keown's spin on karuna and
other associated qualities). While respect for life is undeniable, the
abortion issue usually hinges on whether the fetus is indeed a life in the
relevant sense, and one could challenge either Buddhism or Keown on this
point. That is, as Keown makes quite clear, though Buddhism values life,
it does not value all life equally, and human life as a karmically
advanced stage is particularly important. The fetus at any stage in its
development is certainly in some measure living, but it is not obviously a
recognizable human being at every stage. As a mere conceptus it lacks, of
course, many of the attributes one might label distinctively human except
its genotype. Therefore, unless one insists, reductionistically, that a
certain genetic sequence just is the essence of our humanity, one cannot
say that a fertilized egg is a karmically advanced human being just
because it is a fertilized egg.
In other words, one needs a theory as to what
constitutes a human being, a human life, and therefore a thing worthy of
the greatest possible protection. This Keown attempts to provide through a
discussion of the traditional skandha theory and its implications for the
various embryonic stages of human development. With few exceptions, which
I will return to, Keown argues that a fertilized egg is a fully human
being because the ingredient most essential to such a life is already
present -- vi~n~naa.na (in the Pali). vi~n~naa.na, usually translated as
consciousness, is of course only one of five traditional components of a
living being. The other four are the following: form (the body), feeling,
thought, and character or disposition. (4) Keown's argument for
treating vi~n~naa.na as the most essential group is perhaps best stated in
his discussion and rejection of sentience as the basic moral criterion for
respect as a living being. He says,
the most fundamental [category] is consciousness (vi~n~naa.na),
the fifth. To specify vi~n~naa.na, the criterion of moral status is,
however, simply to say that all living beings have moral status, since it
is impossible to isolate vi~n~naa.na from the psychosomatic totality of a
living being. It is impossible to point to vi~n~naa.na without in the same
act pointing to a living creature, just as it is impossible to point to
'shape' without referencing a physical object. (5)
Although he does add, perhaps inconsistently,
Overall, since neither vi~n~naa.na nor any other of the
five categories by themselves can adequately encompass the nature of a
living being, there is reason to be suspicious of any view which claims to
locate in any one of them what is essential in human nature. (Keown 36)
Earlier he claims that "although feeling and
thought define the architecture of experience, it is . . . vi~n~naa.na
which constitutes it."
What I take Keown to be arguing here is that
vi~n~naa.na is the most important of the skandhas which, to my mind at
least, seems most unBuddhistic. As he himself notes and the Pali canon
repeats ad nauseum, it is the conjunction of all five of the groups that
constitute a living being, at least by any meaning of constitute that I am
aware of. So, why the emphasis on vi~n~naa.na? The above-stated reasons
are, to my mind, weak. It is no less true that without a body, without
sensation, without disposition (in the sense of a karmic past), one would
not be a living, at least human, being. That is, lacking form, a body,
perhaps one could qualify as a hungry ghost, but the Pali texts are very
clear that the "groups" form the basis of the human ego, or at
least the illusion of an ego. "Accordingly, he [Buddha] laid down
only five groups, because it is only these that can afford a basis for the
figment of an ego or of anything related to an Ego". (6) Hence,
no conjunction of the skandhas, no ego-delusion is possible; and
furthermore, no basis, consequently, for what Keown identifies as an
ontological individual apart from its various phenomenal qualities. In
short, it is impossible to isolate any of these groups from "the
psychosomatic totality of a living being."
That said, it is important to consider further what
Keown means by the term vi~n~naa.na. His chosen translation is not
actually 'consciousness' but 'spirit' which I think raises if not
antiBuddhist then at least unBuddhist associations and implications. Keown
rejects the traditional "consciousness" translation of
vi~n~naa.na because "the experience of vi~n~naa.na in this form [as
consciousness] . . . is merely one of its many modes. It is better
understood as functioning at a deeper level and underlying all the powers
of an organism" (Keown 25). He goes on to remark that "vi~n~naa.na
resembles certain Aristotelian-derived notions of the soul in
Christianity, namely as 'the spiritual principle in man which organizes,
sustains, and activates his physical components.'" This then becomes
the justification for the claim that 'spirit' is an appropriate
translation of vi~n~naa.na.
There are times, however, when the refusal to use the
obvious English term hinders rather than helps the process of
understanding. The term in question is 'spirit', and I do not think it
would be misleading to refer to vi~n~naa.na in certain contexts as the
spirit of an individual. vi~n~naa.na is the spiritual DNA which defines a
person as the individual they are. (Keown 25)
Rather confusingly, he compares the role of vi~n~naa.na
with that of the electricity in a computer in order to clarify the kind of
constituting spirituality he has in mind.
An electrical current flows through the computer and is
invisibly present in every functional part. When the power is on, many
complex operations can take place; when the power is off the computer is a
sophisticated but useless pile of junk. Like electricity, vi~n~naa.na
empowers an organism to perform its function. (Keown 27)
The reason I find this association confusing is that
rather than being "invisibly present," electricity is all too
visibly present. Electricity is a physical, not a spiritual, phenomenon.
And if vi~n~naa.na is to be understood on such a model, then not only is
it no longer ghostly but no longer fulfills the functional purpose of
accounting for the "spiritual principle in man which organizes,
sustains, and activates his physical components." Electricity may, in
a loose sense, animate a computer, but it doesn't in any way organize its
physical components. Keown seems to be entertaining two rather different
conceptions of vi~n~naa.na. On the one hand, it is a quasi-Aristotelian
soul-like entelechy that individuates and constitutes an ontological
individual moving along the karmic ladder to eventual enlightenment.
Ultimately, what I find unBuddhistic about such an interpretation is not
the almost antithetical mixture of psychological and physical
characteristics, but the purpose to which this hybrid is put and its
association with the concept of a soul. That Keown intends to make such a
connection is very clear, especially when he remarks that vi~n~naa.na so
understood acts "as the carrier-wave of a person's moral identity; in
the stage of transition between one life and the next . . . [I]t may be
referred to as 'spirit'. An alternative designation for vi~n~naa.na in the
state of transition between lives is the gandhabba, which will be
translated as the 'intermediate being'" (Keown 26). Thus, vi~n~naa.na
is meant to account for individual moral responsibility across the various
stages of karmic life, including rebirth, to eventual nirvana.
However, such an account of human life still does not
square with Buddhism's rejection of the Ego or atman. Indeed, Keown's
version of vi~n~naa.na rather resembles a Vedantic understanding of atman.
Elsewhere he argues that the "moral identity" he mentions is not
what Locke, for example, would identify as 'personhood'. Keown's notion is
much broader, while Locke's concept with its attendant qualities of
rationality and self-consciousness is inappropriate for a Buddhist
anthropology. Such qualities or capacities flower at different times in
the course of an individual's evolution; hence, if all stages of
individual existence are morally significant because they are karmically
continuous, then a suitably broad understanding of the individual is
required in order to valorize the entirety of a human life so understood.
The strength of the atman concept lies in its transcendental vision of an
individual life and support for a moral identity which holds across chains
of rebirth. In short, the atman as it is traditionally understood
accomplishes exactly these functions, preserving moral identity, while at
the same time remaining irreducible to any particular human
characteristic, including self-consciousness, as well as all human
characteristics collectively. In other words, if Keown is looking for a
translation of the term vi~n~naa.na other than 'consciousness', the term
'soul' seems better suited than 'spirit'.
However, it is exactly such a principle or entity which
the Buddhist skandha theory would deny. An individual as such, the Pitakas
argue, is like a chariot, not really there. If presented a chariot, a
Buddhist would ask, "Where, exactly, is the chariot?"
Your majesty if you came in a chariot, declare to me
the chariot . . . the word 'chariot' is but a way of counting, term,
appellation, convenient designation, and name for pole, axle, wheels,
chariot-body, and banner-staff.
Similarly,
Nagasena is but a way of counting, term, appellation,
convenient designation, mere name for the hair of my head . . . brain of
the head, form, sensation, perception, the predispositions, and
consciousness. But in the absolute sense there is no Ego here to be
found. (7)
In other words, no atman whatsoever and, arguably, no
ontological individual either. In fact, "strictly speaking, the
duration of the life of a living being is exceedingly brief, lasting only
while a thought lasts." (8) Buddhists, even early Theravaada
Buddhists, seem to feel they can get along quite well without anything
which might subtend the processes of existence, of sa.msaara, and provide
"moral identity," ontological continuity, or the spiritual DNA
explaining anyone's present predicament. The question really comes down to
whether vi~n~naa.na or any other quality need endure to explain
personality or transmigrate in order to explain rebirth and karma. Keown
seems to feel that logically something must and vi~n~naa.na is the best
candidate. However, the scriptural evidence is missing, and furthermore a
non-substantialist and thoroughly non-Aristotelian explanation of rebirth
can be given.
Supposing we understand rebirth not as the rebirth of
someone but as a mere succession or process. In this view, all acts or
events share some form of dependent connection (pa.ticcasamuppaada).
Therefore, actions and events that take place now share intrinsic
connections to actions and events in the past and in the future along any
number of natural dimensions. In the case of human beings, these
dimensions correspond to the skandhas. Form, sensation, and so on all
represent various sorts of dependency between phenomena. Because there is
no self, soul, or ego we can look at this process in two different manners
corresponding to the difference between enlightenment and delusion. On the
one hand, we can look at the process as a mere empty process wherein
nothing essentially happens, completely detached and hence freed from the
bondage of desire or the expectations of life, and importantly, the
anxieties of death. This represents an enlightened approach which is not
an expectation of transmigration because there is nothing to be
reborn. (9) So, the Buddha claims, this death is his last. Or, we can
look at the process from the standpoint of belief in a thing that
perdures. From this perspective, there is rebirth as transmigration, the
expectation of future lives, the existence of past lives, and so on. One
must, perforce, explain the process as the biography of someone, hence the
fiction of an ego becomes necessary. It is this last which tempts us to
rely on such quasi-Aristotelian notions as souls, spirits, or
"spiritual DNA."
To be fair, Keown is aware of these issues and argues
at several points that vi~n~naa.na is not really a soul not is it a
"subject of experience" (Keown 26). He eloquently states
Buddhism does not ground its ethics in a metaphysical
soul or self, and denies that any such thing exists. According to
Buddhism, the five categories are what remain when the 'soul' is
deconstructed. (Keown 28)
To which I would simply add, why do we need to speak of
"spiritual DNA" or "moral identity" in order to make
sense of Buddhism? These categories themselves seem equally prone to
fixation and quite contrary to the basic notion of anatta. In other words,
I would argue that like all the other groups -- form, sensation, and the
like -- vi~n~naa.na also does not endure, either across or within
lifetimes. None of the groups do, and this is the essential feature of the
anattaa doctrine. Hence, I would not equate vi~n~naa.na in the state of
transition with anything, much less the gandhabba, simply because it is
not transitional. (10)
Keown makes much of the gandhabba's essential role in
the process of conception as portrayed in various Buddhist sources,
interpreting the descent of the intermediate being when biological
conditions at the time of conception are just right as offering what looks
very much like an account of ensoulment. Such a strategy then justifies
Keown's claim that for Buddhists "in the overwhelming majority of
cases individual life is generated through sexual reproduction and begins
at fertilization" (Keown 91). (11) Consequently, abortion is
immoral because it deprives an individual of life and so violates the
First Precept against the intentional taking of life.
In terms of a Buddhist defense of abortion, the main
difficulty with Keown's analysis has to do with his understanding of the
Buddhist view of life which subsumes abortion under the general heading of
intentional killing. Given my understanding of anatta, I see no reason to
subscribe to Keown's understanding of the Buddhist view of human life. For
Keown, all biologically human life is normatively significant because it
is animated by the descended gandhabba, thus conferring the singularity
necessary to view it as ontologically individual. However, given the
distinction between the groups, I see no reason why a committed Buddhist
can't hold that just because one has a body, form or rupa, one doesn't
necessarily have a human life, especially one worthy of the strongest
protection. A human life, in the moral sense, starts unambiguously when
all the skandhas are in place, and the Buddha as well as the early
Buddhist scriptures leave room for a rather large number of
interpretations as to exactly when such a condition occurs in the process
of embryonic development. I suspect that much of Keown's enthusiasm for
his interpretation stems from the ready parallels that may be drawn
between the natural law tradition of Roman Catholicism and Buddhism if
one's vi~n~naa.na is identical to the soul-like gandhabba that pops into
the development process. (12) However, as we have seen, such an
assumption provides Buddhism with a form of ensoulment that it goes to
great lengths to avoid.
If vi~n~naa.na does not in any way subtend the karmic
process from individual to individual and may even be completely episodic
within the context of an individual life, then (1) I see no reason to
interpret vi~n~naa.na as anything other than consciousness or some such
equivalent, and (2) Buddhism need not take vi~n~naa.na to be present at
any particular point in the process of embryonic development. That is,
vi~n~naa.na or consciousness is present whenever one would customarily say
it is and that could be just as well at viability as at conception. In
fact, we would generally hold consciousness to be present only when,
minimally, the cerebral cortex develops and perhaps later. (13) Thus,
even though a Buddhist would hold that consciousness provides the platform
for mind and body, making any conscious being a living being worthy of
moral consideration, it is not clear exactly when such a point might first
occur. Furthermore, even if scriptural sources would locate this point
early on in the embryonic process, a Buddhist could still coherently
question any such time designation as potentially arbitrary mainly
because, as I have argued, Buddhism lacks any comprehensive theory or
deep-level principle that requires the presence of consciousness or an
intermediate being at any particular point in the biological process of
human development.
In fact, Keown admits that a Buddhist could hold the
above position as the Buddha laid down several conditions covering
ontogeny, some strictly biological and mainly regarding coitus and the
mingling of sperm and, mistakenly, "menstrual blood." That is,
even on Keown's analysis, Buddhism traditionally separates the biological
basis for life from the individual life itself. Thus, a fertilized ovum is
arguably a necessary but not sufficient condition for a new life. Rather,
one requires the presence of the full complement of groups including
vi~n~naa.na to complete the development of an individual life. However,
this allows "the material basis for life to arise on its own" (Keown
81), which Keown admits seems to contradict the assumption that the
biological and spiritual basis must always arise together. Keown replies
that if an unanimated conceptus is possible, its long-term survival is not
for it is not "a new individual," and therefore "from the
standpoint of Buddhist doctrine it would seem impossible for it to develop
very far."
The justification for this claim is the Buddha's
statement "that if consciousness were 'extirpated' from one still
young, then normal growth and development could not continue" (Keown
81). Incidentally, this claim also forms the basis for Keown's view that
PVS patients (those in a "persistent vegetative state") are
still individuals worthy of moral protection and should not be ruled as
dead, as some advocates of a higher-brain definition of death would allow.
That is, their continued and stabilized biological existence (some can
live on for decades) demonstrates the presence of vi~n~naa.na and hence
individual life.
However, a liberal Buddhist could claim that while the
loss of vi~n~naa.na might curtail growth and development, it is not clear
that vi~n~naa.na's never having arisen need affect the biological
development of the material basis of an individual's life. Indeed, one
might argue that (1) because "extirpation" of consciousness from
one who already possesses it usually involves physical trauma, of course
we would expect normal growth and development to stop; or (2) even though
vi~n~naa.na is essential to the life of an individual and its
irretrievable loss signals the individual's demise, it doesn't follow that
the mere biological platform and its growth and development signal the
inevitable presence of vi~n~naa.na. (14) That is, it doesn't follow
that vi~n~naa.na, however we interpret it, is essential to the life of the
biological organism. Especially if, as Keown suggests, Buddhism allows the
presence of the material basis of life without that of the gandhabba, then
I don't see how Buddhism can rule out the possibility of simply a more
extended existence of that material basis without vi~n~naa.na. The
biological basis of life may be organically integrated in the manner of a
functional organism, but it is not itself the same thing as an individual
life. I see no compelling rationale, based on Buddhist principles as
articulated in the early scriptures, absolutely requiring the 'individual
life begins at conception' point of view of radically pro-life
antiabortionism.
I grant that the early Buddhist scriptures do seem to
have a somewhat pro-life orientation. Yet, on closer inspection, I'm not
sure the footing is there mostly because of the lack of a theory of
ensoulment. Furthermore, had Buddhists of the time faced the bewildering
medical possibilities of the late twentieth century, I'm not at all sure
how doctrine would have evolved. For example, anencephaly, PVS and various
other comatose conditions where patients exist in only the most minimal
sense and on life support, not to mention transplant surgery, the advances
in human genetics, and so on surely pose a challenge to traditional ways
of regarding the human body. Many of these cases are, to my mind, simply
waved aside by Keown (or his version of Buddhism). To claim that the
pro-life stance of Buddhism simply means that PVS patients are fully
alive (15) is not to do justice to the complexities of the cases or
of Buddhism, both of which suggest that 'life' is an extremely complex
'dependently arisen' phenomenon. (16)
(III)
If one keeps to the traditional
translation/interpretation of vi~n~naa.na as consciousness, rejects any
kind of soul, spirit, atman, or ego as a subsistent core of individual
being either for the course of many karmic lives or a single individual
karmic life, then I see no reason why even a Theravaada Buddhist could not
adopt a socially liberal position on abortion as well as a variety of
other biomedical issues. This is not to say abortion would be a trivial
matter, but the idea that it necessarily demonstrates disrespect for
present life would be undermined. Of course, since abortion does
compromise future life, it is still a morally serious matter, but as such
it does not of itself violate the First Precept. A prohibition on killing
is not an injunction to "be fruitful and multiply" by bringing
into existence as much future life as is possible. (17) Rather, as
long as consciousness is not yet deemed present, we face the material
basis of a life, not the individual life itself.
In many ways, this version of the Buddhist view would
echo what bioethicist Bonnie Steinbock has called the "interest
view":
On the interest view, embryos and preconscious fetuses
lack moral status, despite that they are potentially people . . . the fact
that a being has the capacity to develop into a person, does not mean that
it has any interest in doing so, or any interests at all, for that matter.
And without interest, a being can have no claim to our moral attention and
concern. (18)
However, Steinbock does go on to argue that one's
potential personhood does make a moral difference in regard to interested
beings. So, in her view, a human infant rates more highly than even a
fully developed chimpanzee on the grounds that chimpanzees are not moral
persons in any relevant sense. (19)
The similarity to Buddhism rests on the role of
consciousness or what is sometimes called "the developed capacity for
consciousness." (20) As Keown tirelessly point out, the presence
of vi~n~naa.na is the key to individual status. If vi~n~naa.na is
consciousness and represents the platform on which mind and body are
conjoined, then the presence of vi~n~naa.na signals a karmically
significant stage, that of an individual life for which either release or
rebirth are the twin possibilities marking moral success or failure. Thus,
on the Buddhist view, human life consists of a physical body and various
sensori-motor capacities, conjoined with a mind or intellect all sporting
a karmically conditioned past, that is always in context; individuals do
not have any non-contextual existence. Consciousness is indeed the
platform of mind and body. The body is not itself the mind, and there is
no hint of physicalism or reductionism in this understanding of human
nature. The mind, however, is always passing away; mind is identical to
thoughts and these are fleeting. The stream of consciousness, one could
say, is a Heraclitean river, never the same exact thing twice.
Consciousness is the developed capacity for such a stream in a physical
context. But does this not mean that consciousness, the mental stream of
thoughts, the sensori-motor complex, or one's karmic context are
themselves the subsistent individual? Rather, to the degree such elements
co-arise we have an individual and the permanent absence of any of the
groups is the loss of an individual. Surely, there is at least prima facie
plausibility in the claim that without your body you do not exist; without
your consciousness you do not exist; without your mind you do not exist.
But all of them together do not create some other thing we call the person
which exists apart from these qualities, nor something that goes on after
or existed before. Hence, each and every one of us is egoless strictly
speaking, though we still retain "moral identity" and so can be
held accountable for our actions. In short, when it comes to individual
identity, Buddhism takes a similar position to philosophical
nominalism. (21)
When it comes to marking the temporal boundaries of a
human life, therefore, such Buddhist nominalism tolerates a fair degree of
imprecision. The only way of working out a fairly acceptable answer to the
question when does life begin and when does it end would probably be
through the process of analogizing. We can say that each of us is a
living, morally significant being. The question becomes how much like us
are other beings. How similarly situated do we take them to be? My
suspicion is that some of the variation one finds in Buddhist texts over
whether to treat various life forms as deserving of compassion reflects
differences in individual abilities to imaginatively extend such analogies
so as to creatively identify with the pleasures and pains of other beings,
especially animals. Does a fetus constitute a morally significant being?
The answer would depend on how like us any particular fetus is. Surely, a
late term fetus is, not so certainly a fetus on the threshold of
viability, and dubiously a conceptus.
Of course, such an approach does not help too much in
the process of line drawing. But there are other Buddhist resources that
may assist the line drawer. Any such act would be a matter of conscience,
a morally significant act for the individual reflecting on such
distinctions, as perhaps in the process of contemplating an abortion. What
is important in situations of this nature is to negotiate the pitfalls of
attachment and desire. Correct line drawing is not based in metaphysical
distinctions regarding personhood, but in the moral fiber of the line
drawer and the complex interweave of circumstance and motivation that
color and inform practical judgments. Appropriate questions for reflection
might be the following: What am I seeking to gain? Why am I having or not
having this child? What sort of life is possible for this child? How do I
feel towards this life, this new being? What kind of pain and suffering is
involved in either life or abortion? In short, all those questions which
people do typically seem to mull over when faced with unwanted
pregnancies.
In short, though Buddhism encourages compassionate
action, the question as to what is compassionate in the case of an
unwanted pregnancy cannot be peremptorily answered by metaphysical
proclamations as to when life begins. Thus, without leaving the province
of a conservative Theravaada Buddhism, a traditionalist Buddhism, one need
not embrace the radical antiabortionism of Keown's Buddhist. Some
confirmation of such a position can be found in testimony collected in
William R. LaFleur's book Liquid Life. A Japanese woman and committed
Buddhist reflects on the practice of tatari or propitiating the soul of a
dead fetus in order to avert posthumous revenge.
Buddhism has its origin in the rejection of any notion
of souls . . . that souls cast spells . . . Of course we who are Buddhists
will hold to the end that a fetus is "life." No matter what kind
of conditions make abortion necessary we cannot completely justify it. But
to us it is not just fetuses; all forms of life deserve our respect. We
may not turn them into our private possessions. Animals too. Even rice and
wheat shares in life's sanctity. Nevertheless as long as we are alive it
is necessary for us to go on "taking" the lives of various kinds
of such beings. Even in the context of trying to rectify the
contradictions and inequalities in our society, we sometimes remove from
our bodies that which is the life potential of infants. We women need to
bring this out as one of society's problems, but at the same time it needs
to be said that the life of all humans is full of things that cannot be
whitewashed over. Life is full of wounds and woundings. In Japan, however,
there is always the danger of mindless religion. There are also lots of
movements that are anti-modern and they are tangled up with the resurgence
of concern about the souls of the dead. (22)
It is, of course, arguable that this way of looking at
the issue is fundamentally incoherent. Either we are intentionally taking
life or we are not, and if we are, then we violate Buddhism's First
Precept. The response a Buddhist may make, such Ochiai Seiko's above, is
in essence, "Yes, we should always avoid the ending of a life, no
matter how insignificant it may seem." But 'life' is an ambiguous
term, and the ending of one form of life in the service of others is not
necessarily prohibited in Buddhism. And if one's intention is not so much
to end a life as to rescue others, then we are not dealing with a simple
case of intentionally killing. In other words, compassionate action will
always involve weighing up the full range of circumstances that bear on a
situation or action. On this view, the point of the First Precept is to
disqualify intentional killing where the clear purpose is to end an
individual life. Such an action can never be compassionate in Buddhist
eyes. However, questions as to the status and nature of the lives one
weighs in such tricky situations where interests clash are obviously
relevant. If we are talking about the lives and interests of mothers and
fetuses, fetuses and families, or fetuses and communities (such as in
times of famine), then we are directly faced with the issue of the
relative moral standing of different sorts of life. What I have argued
here is that because Buddhism allows a distinction between the biological
basis of life and its higher cognitive as well as affective aspects and
insists that an individual human life requires the conjunction of all such
aspects, no Buddhist need equate a presentient fetus with a sentient
human. Thus, Ochiai's insistence that in dealing with the messiness of
everyday living, abortion may qualify as a compassionate response need not
contradict Buddhist principles. Especially if we are dealing with the
material platform of an individual being before the point of cerebral
development sufficient for the developed capacity for consciousness, then
the moral seriousness of its claim to life may well be outweighed by other
considerations.
Notes
1. For example, Philip Kapleau or Robert Aitken as
chronicled in Ken Jones, The Social Face of Buddhism (London: Wisdom
Publications, 1989). For Japanese Buddhism's view of abortion see William
R. LaFleur, Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism and Japan (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992). Return to text
2. Damien Keown, Buddhism and Bioethics (London:
Macmillan, 1995). Return to text
3. See Keown, xiv-xv where he gives a defense of his
interpretive approach to Buddhism. While there is certainly nothing wrong
with attempting to discover the scriptural basis of a religious tradition,
it does tend to perhaps unduly weight the Theravaada side of Buddhism
which tends to be more textual and canonical than the Mahaayaana side
where one finds, for example, the Ch'an/Zen tradition of antitextualism.
As Mahaayaana Buddhism accounts for much of the tradition both ancient and
modern, Keown's approach rather undermines his claim to speak
authoritatively for Buddhists generally. Return to text
4. In the Milindapa~nha selection, "There is no
Ego," as translated by Henry Clarke Warren in Buddhism, In
Translations (New York: Atheneum, 1974; originally Harvard University
Press, 1896), 133, we read, "When the Groups appear to view / We use
the phrase, 'A living being'." Return to text
5. Of course, this doesn't exclude the possibility that
there might be beings, perhaps not 'living' ones in the full sense, which
lack vi~n~naa.na. The substance of Keown's claim here is simply that if
one has vi~n~naa.na, then one is living; it doesn't tell you anything
about the case where one lacks vi~n~naa.na. Indeed, I argue further on
that it is just such a possibility that makes abortion and perhaps some
forms of euthanasia acceptable from a Buddhist standpoint. Return to
text
6. Visuddhi-Magga, chap. xiv, translated in Warren,
157. Return to text
7. Milindapa~nha, 25, translated in Warren,
131-3. Return to text
8. Milindapa~nha, 71, translated in Warren, 234-8. The
question raised in this passage is how "rebirth takes place without
anything transmigrating." The answer is essentially that nothing is
continuous from one life to another, nonetheless lives may be causally
linked so that "one is not freed from one's evil deeds." That
is, just because you die, it doesn't mean that you cannot be held
accountable for your actions and their future effects. Karma is real
though one's personal existence is inherently limited. This is why I
suggested before that early Buddhism does not have a 'theory of rebirth';
there is nothing to be reborn. But the doctrine of karma is even stiffer,
therefore: you are immediately responsible for the full effects of your
actions no matter how far in the future they extend. Return to
text
9. The tendency to substantialize the ego has been a
persistent problem in Buddhism prompting much soul-searching critique (no
pun intended), as for example on the part of the Madhyamika. Return
to text
10. Compare with Dogen's discussion in the Genjokoan
fascicle of the Shobogenzo where he states with regard to firewood, for
example, "one should not take the view that it is ashes afterward and
firewood before" (Norman Waddell and Masao Abe, "Shobogenzo
Genjokoan," The Eastern Buddhist 5 (October 1972), 129-140). For
Dogen this is the nature of all processes: none requires a subsistent and
transforming element to tie the process together as a whole. Such a view
contrasts sharply with Keown's portrayal of vi~n~naa.na as
"dynamically involved in all experience whether physical or
intellectual" (Keown 26). Return to text
11. Although he does make room for cases where
fertilization occurs but the intermediate being does not descend, in the
case of twinning, for example. Return to text
12. Keown announces early on in the book his intention
to draw out and exploit such similarities, arguing that Buddhism is itself
a natural law approach to ethics. See xi-xii in the introduction.
Return to text
13. Keown considers a somewhat analogous position
advanced by Louis van Loon, see Keown, 143-4. Van Loon supports a
"higher-brain" definition of death, thus equating an individual
human life to that of the volitional self. Keown rejects this as not
authentically Buddhist, arguing that the capacity involved, cetana, is a
higher mental function than the more basic vi~n~naa.na and so possibly
absent despite the presence of the latter. I, too, would tend to reject
van Loon's position as volition and consciousness need not be the same
thing, the latter being more basic than the former, so that someone could
be conscious without will. Even better as a definitional criterion would
be the "developed capacity for consciousness." Return to
text
14. This parallels the attempt to define the beginning
of life by reference to brain death. If cessation of a certain level of
brain activity signals death, then doesn't its presence signal life?
Hence, we have a nonarbitrary criterion for when life begins. The problem
with this reasoning is that brain activity is, incontestably anyhow, only
a necessary but not a sufficient condition for life. See Baruch Brody,
Abortion and the Sanctity of Life (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1975) and
Bonnie Steinbock's rebuttal in Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal
Status of Embryos and Fetuses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
which also appears in a shortened version in John D. Arras and Bonnie
Steinbock, Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 4th ed. (Mountain View, CA:
Mayfield Publishing Company, 1995), 329-43. Return to text
15. Keown, 158-68. Return to text
16. This may be the pitfall in going to cases rather
than principles in the early scriptures to work out a Buddhist view.
Return to text
17. See William R. LaFleur's discussion of what he
calls "fecundism" in Japanese culture, particularly its military
ramifications: LaFleur, 131-4, 206-10. Return to text
18. See Steinbock in Steinbock and Arras, 337. Return
to text
19. Keown himself echoes this point in his analysis of
an implicit hierarchical ordering of life in Buddhism. Keown argues that
the capacity to attain nirvana and enlightenment is the relevant
criterion. Since humans are much further along the karmic path than
animals in this respect, their lives are all that much more valuable. See
Keown, "Karmic Life," 46-8. Return to text
20. By the "developed capacity for
consciousness" I mean the capacity for consciousness which, of
course, we possess even when asleep or otherwise temporarily
unconscious. Return to text
21. That is, Buddhism denies the existence of a soul or
other metaphysical and abstract entity on the grounds that it is a
construction (vikalpa) out of phenomenal experience and a mere
convenience. See Milindapa~nha 25 in Warren under the title "There is
no Ego," 129-33. Return to text
22. See LaFleur, 169-70. Although Japanese Buddhism is
Mahaayaana, and Keown makes much of the differences between Japanese and
other forms of Asian Buddhism, the sentiments expressed in this passage do
not appeal to anything overtly Mahaayaana or Japanese. The principles
expressed seem very generically Buddhist. Return to text
Source : www.buddhismtoday.com
Update : 01-12-2001
