A Review of Muslim Perspectives on Abortion Worldwide and their Implications for American Muslims
Sarrah Shahawy, Medical Student, Harvard University
Although Islam is the third largest religious group in the United States (Pew) and the second largest religion in the world, very few studies have been conducted on Muslim perspectives on bioethical issues; even fewer have addressed the perspectives of American Muslims. Within the current canon of Muslim bioethics, abortion has been explored only to a limited extent and predominately from an abstract legal lens. Nearly all of this research has been on Muslims in countries outside the United States. This paper serves as a scoping study, which aims to examine the ethical and legal issues that American Muslims seeking an abortion may encounter based on trends identified in legislatively comparable countries.
We performed a systematic review of legal and ethical issues on abortion and found that there are no cases or law review articles specifically related to Islamic law and abortion in the US. We expanded our search to include Islam and abortion more generally, which resulted in a few commentaries on abortion from an Islamic perspective in the context of international human rights. We plan to present our findings in the form of a comparative analysis between Muslim-majority countries and Western ones in order to speculate about similar issues that American Muslims may face when interacting with current abortion laws in relation to their free exercise of religion.
We identified significant commentaries on legal issues of abortion in Muslim-majority countries, noting great variation in juridical rulings (shari’a). The variance in shari’a is arguably based on the principle that the lives of the mother and the fetus have asymmetrical value depending on the period of fetal development and potential for maternal harm. Additionally, Muslims in Western countries, such as Canada and Great Britain, have faced difficulties in the discussion of abortion in the health care setting and in reconciling their varied views with a different set of laws and cultural norms. Studies examining the viewpoints of Muslim patients who had or considered having an abortion in the United Kingdom and Canada have highlighted the need for culturally competent care and for laws that protect women, while also accommodating the religious needs of multiple communities.
Finally, we attempt to situate these perspectives in the American legal context, accounting for differences in social, legislative, and juridical practices found in both Muslim-majority and Western countries. In this endeavor, we seek to examine the abortion debate within the Islamic context and the implications this experience might have firstly on American law, which is required to protect religious freedoms, and secondly, on American health care, which should serve patients with cultural competence. This hypothesis-generating comparative analysis into Muslim perspectives on abortion aims to serve as the inaugural work for further qualitative and quantitative explorations into barriers to access, religious freedom issues, and ethical concerns among Muslims in the United States.
Although Islam is the third largest religious group in the United States (Pew) and the second largest religion in the world, very few studies have been conducted on Muslim perspectives on bioethical issues; even fewer have addressed the perspectives of American Muslims. Within the current canon of Muslim bioethics, abortion has been explored only to a limited extent and predominately from an abstract legal lens. Nearly all of this research has been on Muslims in countries outside the United States. This paper serves as a scoping study, which aims to examine the ethical and legal issues that American Muslims seeking an abortion may encounter based on trends identified in legislatively comparable countries.
We performed a systematic review of legal and ethical issues on abortion and found that there are no cases or law review articles specifically related to Islamic law and abortion in the US. We expanded our search to include Islam and abortion more generally, which resulted in a few commentaries on abortion from an Islamic perspective in the context of international human rights. We plan to present our findings in the form of a comparative analysis between Muslim-majority countries and Western ones in order to speculate about similar issues that American Muslims may face when interacting with current abortion laws in relation to their free exercise of religion.
We identified significant commentaries on legal issues of abortion in Muslim-majority countries, noting great variation in juridical rulings (shari’a). The variance in shari’a is arguably based on the principle that the lives of the mother and the fetus have asymmetrical value depending on the period of fetal development and potential for maternal harm. Additionally, Muslims in Western countries, such as Canada and Great Britain, have faced difficulties in the discussion of abortion in the health care setting and in reconciling their varied views with a different set of laws and cultural norms. Studies examining the viewpoints of Muslim patients who had or considered having an abortion in the United Kingdom and Canada have highlighted the need for culturally competent care and for laws that protect women, while also accommodating the religious needs of multiple communities.
Finally, we attempt to situate these perspectives in the American legal context, accounting for differences in social, legislative, and juridical practices found in both Muslim-majority and Western countries. In this endeavor, we seek to examine the abortion debate within the Islamic context and the implications this experience might have firstly on American law, which is required to protect religious freedoms, and secondly, on American health care, which should serve patients with cultural competence. This hypothesis-generating comparative analysis into Muslim perspectives on abortion aims to serve as the inaugural work for further qualitative and quantitative explorations into barriers to access, religious freedom issues, and ethical concerns among Muslims in the United States.