Karmic Critiques of Abortion and Infanticide

Abstract

Employing both hedonistic and preference utilitarianism, Peter Singer argues for abortion and infanticide. This essay challenges his arguments from the perspective of karma. There is suggestive evidence for karma. Singer's claim that fetuses and newborn infants are not persons is false if they have souls. Abortion and infanticide, if performed on human embryos with souls, fetuses with souls, and infants with souls, temporarily deprive them and possibly potential mothers of their opportunities to decrease their negative karma and increase their positive one. Unlike Singer's claim, morality should not rest on our actual preferences for the following reasons: First, morality based on our actual preferences would take us away from decreasing our negative karma and developing spiritually. Second, preference is not a stable ground for morality. Singer argues that it is morally acceptable to kill a fetus or newborn infant and replace him with another. The lives of fetuses and newborn infants are replaceable from the perspective of reincarnation. However, abortion and infanticide can significantly delay a soul's opportunity to decrease its negative karma. And they themselves produce negative karma for those who kill. Therefore, if the law of karma exists, abortion and infanticide are morally undesirable.