Tricycle | Awake in the World

EVERYTHING IMPORTANT ABOUT LIFE is important about abortion. "The Great Matter of Life and Death"—as the Zen texts put it—haunts every nuance of the battles between men and women, rich and poor, fetal rights versus mothers' rights, or states' rights versus federal rights. Yet the abortion debate has become so politicized and polarized that both sides view inquiry as betrayal. Politics may promise yes-or no-answers, but abortion is a no-win situation which confronts humanity with its own greatest mysteries.

Ambivalence about abortion is common, but rarely voiced; and for those women and men committed to individual rights for adults, any discussion that compromises pro-choice approaches heresy. Yet ambivalence, confusion, and conflict come with the territory, for abortion poses questions that cannot be answered by doctors, priests, senators, or moral philosophers, or settled by dogma.

"This is not an intellectual issue," says a white middle-class therapist and former staff member of a New York City abortion clinic where the average clients were 13-year-old black girls. "I wanted to work there," she continued. "I believed in abortion; it was a feminist issue. But the first time I witnessed an operation, something came up from deep inside me. I couldn't take it." After three months, she resigned but today remains a dedicated proponent of the right to choose. "In terms of a woman's entire life, abortion is usually a pretty awful experience, but that doesn't mean it's the wrong choice."

As the 1992 elections heat up, everyone wants to figure out which side to be on, but the subject of abortion demands more than that. According to Sho Ishikawa, a 32-year-old former Zen monk from Japan who currently attends Brown University, "Because of the political issue, you have to take a stand: abortion is right or wrong. But that's just a conventional sense of right and wrong. It's never the whole story. Especially with abortion."

Buddhists are often asked to explain their view of abortion by those who incorrectly assume that Buddhism has its own version of papal authority. Though Buddhism has no cohesive platform, its primary views provide alternatives to the current abortion debate. In Judaism and Christianity, human life has been the focus of the biblical injunction, "Thou shalt not kill." Like the first commandment, the first precept of the Buddhist ethical code also prohibits killing. In Buddhism, the most severe karmic consequences arise from killing humans but no form of life escapes the first precept. Buddhists take vows "to save all sentient beings." Without doubt this includes cows and carrots. Yet there are Zen teachers who apply "sentient" to any form that comes into and passes out of this sphere of existence, and that can include non-organic objects such as teacups and toothbrushes and artworks. We vow to "save" them through care and attention.

While East-West dialogues tend to stress common values, Buddhism does offer very clear alternatives to our own anthropocentric traditions. From the all-encompassing life-view of Buddhism, the religious wing of the anti-abortion movement fails to communicate a sacred regard for creation by limiting its arguments to human life alone. When pro-life politics excludes trees, oceans, animals, or victims of AIDS, warfare, and capital punishment, religious language may amount to nothing more than slogans that play well in the media.

In the American debate, President Bush's support for abortion in cases of rape and incest exemplifies the secular manipulation of religious sentiment. If the morality of the anti-choice platform is based on protecting the fetus, then it is illogical—and irreverent—to suggest that any fetus qualifies for the death sentence. Also, in those communities where anti-abortion sentiment prevails, these "exceptions" create their own twisted morality for those women who become pregnant through rape or incest. As witnessed by the support for Clarence Thomas and William Kennedy Smith, men and women in this society still view the violated woman as the victim of her own folly; therefore, to sanction abortion for cases of rape or incest further burdens the stigmatized woman with the responsibility of cleansing her defilement. This benign dispensation—as we are asked to see it—has nothing to do with protecting the unborn. Furthermore, the criminal, who often receives leniency in the court system, is morally censured by licensing the death of his offspring. In the name of protection we get punishment. These "exceptions" reinforce ancient patterns of control. As a necessary compromise to get votes and appear reasonable, the exceptions champion a political platform, not an objective morality. What we have here may point to an older and deeper issue: since men cannot deny to women their power to give life, they will try—as they have done historically—to deny to women the power to take it.

PRO-CHOICE ADVOCATES also embrace the anthropocentric reliance on interpreting the "great matter of life and death" in terms of human values alone. They, too, trim the terms of debate to satisfy their constituencies. Based on a litany of sexist and secular injustices, this platform denies any dimension that threatens the political affirmation of adult rights, including the messy, emotional investigation of whether abortion is killing or not. Unfortunately, however, the public debate conditions private considerations. While denying "the great matter" may advance political success, it is detrimental to women who must face the very choice that this platform represents. Influenced by pro-choice rhetoric, too many women face "the great matter" after choosing abortion. But only in the political arena does the belief that abortion is the taking of life threaten the pro-choice platform. In actual lives and experiences it does not. For this reason, in the past few years many people, Buddhist practitioners and others, have arrived at what might be called a pro-choice / anti-abortion position.

This logic supports women's right to choose abortion and refuses to allow the mostly male legislature to control their lives. But pro-choice/anti-abortion indicates an acceptance of how painful and problematic abortion so often is for everyone involved—parents, families, doctors, and counselors.

Not long ago, I asked a Buddhist priest how she felt about abortion. "To tell you the truth," she whispered into the office phone of a California Zen center, "I can't bear the idea of abortion. It makes me sick." Asked if she would still vote pro-choice, she answered, "Absolutely. My commitment is to support pregnant women in whatever choice they make."

Among my friends, one consistent difference keeps emerging: non-Buddhists argue, in sweeping socio-economic and historic terms, for pro-choice as the touchstone of women's lives. But when it comes to whether or not the fetus qualifies as life, convincing dialectics often collapse into sighs and hesitation. On the other hand, Buddhist practitioners seem to accept that abortion at any stage, unequivocally, means the taking of life.

In the past year, the American Buddhist women I spoke with (from all different lineages) agreed that abortion may sometimes be necessary but is never desirable, and should never be performed without the deepest consideration of all aspects of the situation. This came from women who said that they themselves would, under no circumstances, ever have an abortion, from women who could imagine circumstances under which they would consider abortion, and from women, like myself, who have experienced abortion. All of us are currently committed to a pro-choice ballot.