However, many Buddhist leaders also view the issue as complex and one which needs to be addressed and infused with compassion. In a booklet titled The Buddhist Perspective on Women’s Rights, Hsing Yun, a modern Chinese Buddhist master, says there are at least two life issues where abortion may be acceptable.
The first one deals with a woman who is pregnant with a fetus which is severely handicapped. “Can a third party tell her that she must not have any abortion?” he asks and adds: “After she bears the child, she will spend decades raising it, and will any of those people be around to help or even care about her then?”
A second issue is a woman who is raped and becomes pregnant. “If we believe that compassion means that we must oppose all kinds of killing, including abortion, then how are we going to handle the mother’s potential life-long mixed feelings of love and animosity toward her child?” is the question he raises.
Master Yun believes that the abortion issue cannot be simply or easily decided “because there are just too many complex factors present in nearly every case.”
For that reason he teaches that “it is best to allow the person who is most affected by the abortion to have the right to decide what she wants to do, which means the pregnant woman should have the right to make the decision for herself. . .The person who has the most right to decide the question is the mother of the fetus. It should be up to her to make the decision and everyone else should respect it because, more than anyone else, she must bear all the consequences.”