Peter Harvey An Introduction To Buddhist Ethics Summary

Upon reading the article “An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics” by Peter Harvey, I found that there were a lot of contradictions about abortion in the Buddhist perspective. In Buddhism, abortion is seen as being akin to killing an adult human, and therefore is seen as a serious act of crime (Harvey, 318). However, there is still a spectrum of circumstances that determines the type of punishment one receives depending on the severity and intentions behind the performance of such act. For example, the passages from Vinaya state that deliberately killing a human (i.e. abortion) is seen worse than killing any animal (whether noble or not). However, the same passages also state that the severity of the act of abortion as a crime is dependent on the age of the fetus (Harvey, 318). What this means is that if you kill a newborn baby, it is seen to be worse

However, aborting a fetus regardless of any situation (i.e. financial issues) is still forbidden (Harvey, 324). Buddhists believe that since being able to have a child is considered to be a tremendous blessing, then, once the baby is born, you will find a way to provide for it. However, if for some reason the family’s circumstances do not improve, then adoption is still an option (Harvey, 324). From this evidence, it appears that Buddhism does in fact consider abortion to be a wrong doing, however they seem to be reluctant to impose rigid moral rules on the topic. To me, this seems very contradictory because in the culture that we have been raised in, we are thought to believe that if something is bad, then it should be banned. However, this is not the case in the Buddhist perspective, possibly because they may seem to think that authoritative rules against a certain issue may actually lead to further moral