Theos-Talk Archives (October 2000 Message tt00213)

Dallas Tenbroeck wrote:
> HPB wrote an article which states the attitude of the
> Theosophical philosophy on the subject of abortion.

More precisely, it was part of an ongoing question & answer dialogue.

> It is titled
> 
> IS FETICIDE A CRIME?

> The article begins: " At no age as under no circumstances
> whatever is a murder justifiable...[the article continues and
> observes: "The crime committed lies precisely in the wilful and
> sinful destruction of life, and interference with the operations
> of nature, hence -- with KARMA -- that of the mother and the
> would-be future human being....feticide is a crime against
> nature...[Occultism states] : "feticide as an attempt to double
> suicide. For, indeed, when even successful and the mother does
> not die just then, it still shortens her life on earth to prolong
> it with dreary percentage in Kama-loka, the intermediate sphere
> between the earth and the region of rest...]

It says a lot more than that. I don't have it handy, but I do have the
notes I took on it. First of all, up front, Blavatsky points out that,
at the time, abortion WAS illegal; in fact, even supporting it in
writing was a crime (distributing literature about LEGAL birth control
was illegal, for that matter). She did, however state that sometimes the
karma entailed by having the abortion is less than the karma entailed by
not. 

Bart Lidofsky