Abortion, Islam, and the 1994 Cairo population conference

International Journal of Middle East Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 161-184

  Bowen, Donna Lee ^a  

^a BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ABORTION; ISLAM; RELIGION; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S STATUS;

EID: 0030694741     PISSN: 00207438     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S002074380006445X     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Peter Waldman, "Population Conference Fallout Is Feared," Wall Street Journal, 2 September 1994; Alan Cowell, "Despite Abortion Issue, Population Pact Nears," New York Times, 9 September 1994; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "Islam Forbids Attack on the Fetus by Abortion," 8 September 1994; John Lancaster, "Islamic Leaders: Parts of UN. Population Document Offensive," Salt Lake Tribune, 13 August 1994.
2. Peter Waldman, "Population Conference Fallout Is Feared," Wall Street Journal, 2 September 1994; Alan Cowell, "Despite Abortion Issue, Population Pact Nears," New York Times, 9 September 1994; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "Islam Forbids Attack on the Fetus by Abortion," 8 September 1994; John Lancaster, "Islamic Leaders: Parts of UN. Population Document Offensive," Salt Lake Tribune, 13 August 1994.
3. Peter Waldman, "Population Conference Fallout Is Feared," Wall Street Journal, 2 September 1994; Alan Cowell, "Despite Abortion Issue, Population Pact Nears," New York Times, 9 September 1994; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "Islam Forbids Attack on the Fetus by Abortion," 8 September 1994; John Lancaster, "Islamic Leaders: Parts of UN. Population Document Offensive," Salt Lake Tribune, 13 August 1994.
4. Peter Waldman, "Population Conference Fallout Is Feared," Wall Street Journal, 2 September 1994; Alan Cowell, "Despite Abortion Issue, Population Pact Nears," New York Times, 9 September 1994; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "Islam Forbids Attack on the Fetus by Abortion," 8 September 1994; John Lancaster, "Islamic Leaders: Parts of UN. Population Document Offensive," Salt Lake Tribune, 13 August 1994.
5. The position of the Roman Catholic church states that human life is to be respected and protected from the moment of conception: "Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law" (United States Catholic Conference, Inc., Catechism of the Catholic Church [Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994], para. 2270-71, 547). Abortion as a mortal sin carries a penalty of excommunication. Given this teaching, the church holds that one cannot terminate a pregnancy solely to save the mother's life. A mother's health can be protected only if the abortion is an unintended result of the procedure - that is, if a mother has a condition that requires actions that may or may not damage the fetus. "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing, the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival" (Catechism, para. 2275, 549).
6. The position of the Roman Catholic church states that human life is to be respected and protected from the moment of conception: "Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law" (United States Catholic Conference, Inc., Catechism of the Catholic Church [Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994], para. 2270-71, 547). Abortion as a mortal sin carries a penalty of excommunication. Given this teaching, the church holds that one cannot terminate a pregnancy solely to save the mother's life. A mother's health can be protected only if the abortion is an unintended result of the procedure - that is, if a mother has a condition that requires actions that may or may not damage the fetus. "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing, the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival" (Catechism, para. 2275, 549).
7. United Nations, "Statement of Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan," in "Report of the International Conference on Population and Development: Addendum," Cairo, 13-15 September 1994, 30.
8. United Nations, "Statement of Benazir Bhutto," 28.
9. United Nations, "Report of the International Conference on Population and Development," Cairo, 13-15 September 1994, 49.
10. Translation taken from N. J. Dawood, The Koran (New York: Penguin Books, 1974).
11. ⊂Abd," (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960), 1:25.
12. A similar passage is found in sūra al-Ghafīr (40), verse 66.
13. Muslim ibn al-H + (Combining dot below sign)ajjāj, Sahīh Muslim, trans. Abul Hamid Siddiqi (Lahore, 1981), 4:1391-93.
14. Ahmad Sahnoun, "Islam's View of Abortion and Sterilization," in Islam and Family Planning, 2 vols. (Beirut: International Planned Parenthood Federation, 1970), 2:373. The literature on Islam and abortion owes a great deal to articles written for the 1970 conference on Islam and Family Planning sponsored in Rabat, Morocco, by the International Planned Parenthood Federation under the direction of Dr. Isam Nazer. This conference brought together physicians, ulama, academics, public-health specialists, and representatives of international development agencies to discuss issues related to family planning. The papers presented at the conference and the ensuing discussion have been published in both English and Arabic in a two-volume format. As these materials bring together representative positions of scholars from throughout the Muslim world, they furnish an important source for studies of religion and family planning.
15. In Family Planning and the Legacy of Islam (London: Routledge, 1992), 190-92, Abdel Omran presents a comprehensive summary of the positions of the legal schools on abortion. In a later chapter of the book, he summarizes the positions of various contemporary scholars on abortion.
16. Sīna, Qanūn, and Abu al-Hasan al-Tabib, Khalq al-insān,
17. quoted in Basim Musallam, in Sex and Society in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 69-70.
18. Muhammad Salam Madkur, "Sterilization and Abortion from the Point of View of Islam," in Islam and Family Planning, 2:280-81.
19. Norman Hines, Medical History of Contraception (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 135-59. The jurisprudence literature was written exclusively by men whose knowledge of contraceptive measures was largely confined to coitus interruptus. The medical texts of the period (also written by men), however, also document a variety of measures that were employed by women to prevent pregnancy. The theological implications of their use were never considered, possibly because the jurisprudents were not cognizant of their existence or use.
20. ⊂Ulum al-Dīn, 2:41. See page 58 for Musallam's discussion.
21. ⊂at and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam, ed. Katherine P. Ewing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 1-22.
22. Ewing, "Ambiguity," 2-3.
23. Interview with the grand mufti of Tunisia, 28 May 1975; also interviews with a number of other Tunisian ulama, including Kemal Tarzi, all of whom emphasized that abortion before creation, takwīn, of the fetus is permitted. These scholars emphasized that they did not speak for all Tunisian ulama but that a majority were in agreement with their position.
24. In 1993, I interviewed a number of Moroccan public-health personnel who presented these views. Here I am referring to remarks made by Dr. Tiam Mustafa, director. Division of Family Planning, Rabat, Morocco, in a series of interviews conducted in June 1993.
25. Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer, "Reproductive Choice in Islam: Gender and State in Iran and Tunisia," Studies in Family Planning 25, 1 (1994): 41-51.
26. See United Nations, The World's Women 1970-1990: Trends and Statistics (New York: United Nations, 1991).
27. Barbara F. Stowasser, "Religious Ideology, Women, and the Family: The Islamic Paradigm," in The Islamic Impulse, ed. Barbara F. Stowasser (Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1987), 262-96.
28. I prefer not to identify this alim by name.
29. Salāh Muntasir, "Qadīyat al-Ijhād" (The Issue of Abortion), al-Ahrām, 12 September 1994, 7.
30. Interviews with professor and former minister of Habbous Mekki Naciri, Rabat, Morocco, June 1993.
31. Hassan Hathout, "Induced Abortion," in Islam and Family Planning, 2:307.
32. Abdul Rahman al-Khayyir, "Attitude of Islam towards Abortion and Sterilization," in Islam and Family Planning, 2:347-48, 360.
33. Sahnoun, "Islam's View of Abortion and Sterilization," 381.
34. United Nations, "Statement of Benazir Bhutto," 30.
35. "Muslims Protest U.N. Draft on Population," New York Times, 12 August 1994, A9.
36. Ethan Bronner, "Western, Muslim Leaders Dispute Abortion, Values," Boston Globe, 6 September 1994.
37. ⊂a Unless to Protect the Life of the Mother," al-Ahrām, 7 September 1994, 4.
38. Al-Qisbi Mahmoud Zalt, "Islam Forbids Attacks on the Fetus with Abortion," al-Ahrām, 8 September 1994, 14.
39. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawī, "A Word on Family Planning," al-Ahrām, 19 September 1994, 6.
40. Waldman, "Population Conference Fallout Is Feared."
41. See Ibid. Also, a representative argument is found in Fatima Mernissi, Doing Daily Battle, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 9-12.
42. See Ibid. Also, a representative argument is found in Fatima Mernissi, Doing Daily Battle, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 9-12.
43. ⊂Abd al-Majīd Faraj, "The Conference: The Romances of the North and the Concerns of the South," al-Ahrām, 18 September 1994, 6, for a more sophisticated statement of the concerns of Egyptian intellectuals on the North-South debate.
44. Guglielmo Giumelli, "Interruzione della gravidanza e legislazione: Un'Indagine in Tunisia" (Interruption of Pregnancy and Legislation: Research in Tunisia), Rivista di Servizio Sociale 21, 3 (1981): 146-56.
45. "Tunisia 1988: Results from the Demographic and Health Survey," Studies in Family Planning 22, 1 (1991): 55-59.
46. Ayşe Akin Dervişoǧlu and GuI Ergor, "Abortions and Stillbirths," Turkish Demographic and Health Survey, 1993, Ministry of Health, General Directorate of Mother and Child Health and Family Planning, Ankara, Turkey, and Demographic and Health Surveys, Macro International Inc., Calverton, Md., (October 1994), 51-58.
47. U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1994, 14th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, 1994), 85.
48. Michael Ryan, Social Trends in Contemporary Russia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 112. Most demographers believe that these statistics, which are derived from hospital records, represent an under-reporting of abortions, and that many more abortions are performed in homes and thus not reported.
49. Hines, in Medical History of Contraception, refers on p. 151 to recipes for abortifacients collected in Ibn al-Baitar's Treatise but does not list ingredients or amounts.
50. Hines, in Medical History of Contraception, refers on p. 151 to recipes for abortifacients collected in Ibn al-Baitar's Treatise but does not list ingredients or amounts.
51. See the longer discussion in Musallam, Sex and Society in Islam, 68-71; the quotation is taken from page 71. Musallam raises the question of whether conservative physicians attempted to moderate what they saw as the liberal influence of the theologians on social attitudes toward contraception and abortion.
52. Data taken from interviews I conducted with a series of Moroccan public-health physicians from 1993-95.
53. Hines, Medical History of Contraception, 151.
54. Although contraceptive use to space or prevent pregnancies has increased, the prevalence rates for modern types of contraceptives average around 35 percent in North Africa but are lower in countries of the Middle East. See the World Population Data Sheet, Population Reference Bureau, 1995. Greater use of contraception or application of other means of family planning in these cases (sterilization for women finished with childbearing) could prevent recourse to abortion. Neither the public-health services nor national planned-parenthood associations furnish contraceptives to unmarried women, although anyone may purchase oral contraceptives in pharmacies. As a result of the social stigma attached, few utilize contraception even if they are sexually active.
55. The fragmented and anecdotal nature of this data should be emphasized. The study of abortion in the Middle East is an emerging issue, and one in which accurate data on frequency is difficult to gain systematically. Because of the subject's sensitive nature (abortion was illegal in each country in which the women I spoke with reside), the women who confided in me had established a relationship with me before they spoke of abortion. They feared repercussions if the abortion were discovered. The stories I received from third parties all emphasized confidentiality and were anonymous, again in fear of consequences if discovered.
56. Abdul Rehman, mufti of New Delhi, quoted in John-Thor Dahlburg, "Faiths Disagree on Morality of Abortion," Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1995, 5.
57. Donna Lee Bowen, "Islam and Family Planning in Morocco," Maghreb Review 3, 10 (1980): 26-29. In the past five years, Moroccan family-planning officials have made a concerted effort to communicate the more intricate position of the ulama on contraceptive use to less-educated religious leaders.
58. Cowell, "Despite Abortion Issue, Population Pact Nears."
59. Ibid.
60. Chris Hedges, "Key Panel at Cairo Talks Agrees on Population Plan," New York Times, 13 September 1994.
61. 54United Nations, "Report," 49, para. 7.24.
62. Ibid., 61-62, para. 8.25.
63. Ibid., 135.
64. Libya noted that abortions are allowed only if the mother's health is in danger; ibid., 139. The United Arab Emirates noted that they do not consider abortion a means of family planning; ibid., 141. The Yemenis objected to the expression "unsafe abortion" as being unclear and not in accordance with their religious beliefs; ibid. Iran, along with other Muslim-majority states, objected to expressions that could be interpreted as referring to sexual relations outside marriage; ibid., 149.
65. Alan Cowell, "U.N. Population Meeting Adopts Program of Action," New York Times, 14 September 1994.
66. See the collection of articles on abortion and the discussion on the conference report in Islam and Family Planning, vol. 2, as well as the proceedings of 1994 Population Conference.
67. Fazlur Rahman, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1987), 118.
68. Female professionals from Morocco and Jordan suggested this eventuality. This information is taken from interviews I conducted in Morocco and the United States in 1993 and 1994.