Religion restricts female rights to abortion

The argument

Many mainstream religions forbid abortion. Underlying the prohibition is a view that it results in the killing of a living being. There are various arguments relating to the stage of gestation as to when an embryo becomes a living being capable of having the value of life, but for the purposes of religion, abortion is a sin — and this view is relatively consistent be it Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism or Buddhism. The argument's first step is therefore about breadth: this is not one tradition's idiosyncratic rule but a judgement shared, in substance, by traditions that agree on little else. The second step is that such values do not remain private. Where they shape law or the practice of hospitals, these religious values can restrict a female's right to abortion, sometimes with fatal consequences. The case offered is the death of 31 year old Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 due to an infection further to an abortion being denied during a miscarriage in Ireland. What makes that case central to the argument is that the restriction governed the treatment of a woman whose pregnancy was already ending, so the prohibition applied even where the outcome it was meant to protect was no longer available. The third step is that restriction does not produce the result it intends. These restrictions based on religion do not stop women attempting to get abortions. This leads to a healthcare issue where women will either pay, if they have the funds, to get the abortion elsewhere, or alternatively will pursue illegal and dangerous ways of getting one. The burden therefore falls unevenly, penalising the poorest women in society while those with means simply travel. Feminism, on this argument, requires that women hold authority over their own bodies and that the law treat them equally regardless of means. A religious rule that removes that authority, that has cost women their lives, and that in practice sorts women by income, is on this view not compatible with it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The cause of the ideology on abortion is not entirely religious. There are religious groups who are pro-abortion and do not support the Hyde Amendment, which takes away funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest and danger to life. It is argued that policies that refuse access to abortion target people in poor socio-economic backgrounds and contribute to institutional racism. People who follow a religion and are pro-abortion argue that allowing abortion provides dignity and equality of life. Each person has a right to their own safety and wellbeing. The rich can pay for these amenities, but the poor should be afforded equal healthcare, even in respect of reproductive rights. Using religion to deny someone the rights to healthcare is not religious.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The claim of consistency across traditions is not accurate. Jewish law has long held that abortion is required where a pregnancy threatens the mother's life; Islamic jurisprudence contains a range of positions turning on stage of gestation; and neither Hinduism nor Buddhism has a central authority capable of issuing the prohibition described. Even within Christianity the positions differ substantially between denominations. [Rejecting P2] The Halappanavar case shows how a law shaped by religious commitment can kill, which is a serious point, but the conclusion is about compatibility with feminism and does not follow from it. As the counter-argument notes, religious groups campaign on both sides of this question, so an argument that a tradition's dominant position on one issue is unjust establishes a conflict on that issue rather than an incompatibility in principle. The argument also treats abortion access as the single test of feminism, which the sibling position disputes.