Muslims believe that Allah decides who dies at what time and to disobey this or to think that you can decide yourself is wrong.
‘Do not take life – which Allah has made sacred except for just cause’
This shows that if a Muslim was to abort their child it would be an act of shirk because they are taking death into their own hands, they are acting as god.
When you have an abortion you are killing the foetus of the child that is inside the mother but some people may argue that the foetus is not yet a child so it wouldn’t matter if the mother has an abortion. I don’t think that this is correct because many doctors have different views on at exactly what stage of the foetus’s development it becomes alive, some people believe that it’s when its heart begins to beat, some say it’s when there brain is developed and some say it is when the child has a soul.
‘When the souls are sorted out; when the female infant buried alive is asked for what crime she was killed; ….. When the world on high is unveiled….. Then shall each soul know what it has put forward’ (Surah). The Muslim mothers know this and if they do it simply because they don’t want a child then it is considered as shirk.
In Islam, Muslims strongly believe that killing is wrong, but in this case there are many reasons were it may be considered as the right thing to do.
Some people may have abortions because they fear they would not be able to bring up the child, this does not mean that they should then go and kill the child. ‘Do not kill your children in fear of poverty. We shall provide for both them and you. Killing them is a big sin. (Quran 17:31) This shows that even if you are poor god will look after you because you are his child.
If they mother truly felt that she could not look after the child and she wanted to have an abortion then there is nothing that anyone else can do about it but she must know that in the future she will have to face up to her sins.
I can also understand why some people may disagree with this statement and that is what I will now discuss. There are many environmental, religious and cultural issues about abortions but in Islam there only a few exceptions in which allow a woman to have an abortion.
If the woman is pregnant from rape then she is allowed to have an abortion because she would be having the child in an unjust way. This would be accepted. Also if having the child would hurt the mother in a way more than it should this is also acceptable because she is suffering and it is considered as the lesser of two evils. ‘Abortion is legal in one case only, and that is when the retention of the foetus or embryo in the uterus threatens the mother’s life’. Muslims believe in the ‘120 day rule’. Muslims believe that after 120 days the baby begins to develop a soul. This may have a big affect on the abortion of a child as Muslims may also believe that the baby is alive and fully aware of its surroundings, this would no longer be killing an unborn un developed child but would be killing something with a soul, therefore killing a part of Allah.
Abortion can become a big issue in the Muslim community as there are many reasons to keep the child and many reasons not to. I agree that Muslim women should not have abortions as there are many religious issues that are involved and if they are a strict Muslim it would be hard for them to go against these teachings but I also think that if the foetus has been conceived in an unjust way then they should be allowed to abort it and if having the baby is causing more pain to the mother than is necessary it should also be allowed to be aborted. I do not think that by any other reasons should the child be aborted as you are killing your child for reasons that are not enough, not enough to kill someone, not enough to act as god.
