Abortion

Religions of the world are divided on the subject of abortion. Pro-choice views coexist alongside no-choice views in the world's major and indigenous religions.

All religions are united on reverence and awe and concern for the preservation of life. For that [Page 4]reason, life and death issues are of prime concern for all the world religions. Mysteries such as birth and death particularly stimulate the emotion of the religio-sacred, making religion an inevitable factor—for good or for ill—in the ethics and policies of family planning. Religion has always been a dominant presence in discussions of abortion rights.

Many factors are involved in fertility motivation (such as education level, affluence, the status of women, etc.), and thus, it is notoriously difficult to say with certainty how much the ...