ReligionDispatches.org

Last month

the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) published Surfacing, a compilation of the papers presented

at the 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Reproductive Sexual Health and

Rights (APCRSH) in Hyderabad last year. Surfacing discusses

the impact of Roman Catholic, Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism on sexual

and reproductive health and rights in a number of countries in the region.

In many respects, the publication attempts to address the challenges

of religious fundamentalism, whilst encouraging a more rights-based

and gendered approach to practicing religion.  

Of particular

interest is Zaitun Mohamed Kasim's contribution on Islamic fundamentalism. His contribution raises many concerning examples of how the differing interpretations

of Islamic jurisprudence bear upon a range of reproductive health issues

in Malaysia and Indonesia, two Muslim-Dominant countries in Southeast

Asia, where 60.4 and 86.1 percent of the population respectively

are Islamic. With no central doctrinal authority, fatwahs (religious edicts) serve as the "bridge"

between Islamic principles and modern life. With thousands of fatwahs

issued every month in Islamic countries around the globe, even religious

and political leaders in the Muslim world admit that the number is excessive, causing confusion and potentially

reflecting ideology more than learning. 

This divergence

in Islamic thought is reflected in the varying levels of acknowledgment

and acceptance of abortion. In most Muslim-majority countries, abortion

is generally prohibited with exceptions usually made where the health

of the mother is at risk. Malaysia's Abortion

Act 1967

makes termination of pregnancy illegal, with minor exceptions. A pregnancy

may be terminated if two registered medical practitioners are of the

opinion, formed in good faith, that continuation of the pregnancy will

endanger the mother's life. Termination of pregnancy is also advised

to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical and mental health

of the mother. ARROW reports that many service providers

and members of the public in Malaysia do not know the legal exceptions

for abortion, partly due a lack of accurate information and partly because

of the low priority accorded by the government to promoting women's

reproductive rights. Dr

Choong Sim Poey of the Reproductive Rights

Advocacy Alliance

in Malaysia similarly suggests that whilst abortion services are "widely

available" in the private sector, information about public

sector abortion services is "hush-hush," with the Ministry of Health refusing to provide abortion services in public

hospitals based on the interpretation of the penal code.   

The Indonesian

abortion law is based on a national health bill passed in 1992 that

has been criticized for its vagueness. The law is generally interpreted as allowing

abortion only if the woman provides confirmation from a doctor that

her pregnancy is life-threatening, a letter of consent from her husband

or a family member, a positive pregnancy test result and a statement

guaranteeing that she will practice contraception afterwards. Like in

Malaysia, Maria

Ufar Ansor, head

of the women's section of Indonesia's biggest Islamic Organisation,

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), has stated that dangerous abortion techniques

are not uncommon, with the Guttmacher

Institute reporting

two million induced abortions in Indonesia every year.  

The study conducted

by the Guttmacher

Institute is particularly

interesting for its survey of the attitude to abortion of 105 Muslim,

Catholic and other Christian religious leaders in Indonesia. This survey

revealed that 82% of the leaders surveyed agreed that abortion is acceptable

if a woman's life is in danger, many reasoning that a woman's life

should be prioritized over that of the fetus because a woman "is needed

to look after the children and family she already has." The survey

also concluded that Muslim leaders, though conservative, were more tolerant

of abortion than their Christian counterparts, with a higher proportion

of Muslim than Christian leaders supporting abortion if the pregnancy

would interfere with a woman's schooling or impact her psychological

health. 

Importantly,

however, the Guttmacher report notes the differences in what is considered

an acceptable gestational period according to sect. Followers of Imam

Hanafi generally consider an abortion acceptable up to 120 days after

conception. However, followers of Syafi'i consider abortion acceptable

only within 40 days of conception. Indonesian Matters,

an Indonesian website on the theme of culture and Islamization, refers

to the head of the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), Indonesia's Clerics'

Council, Ma'ruf

Amin, who espouses

that the book recalling the words and deeds of Muhammad "says that

at the fortieth day of pregnancy the unborn child receives its soul

or spirit, and hence abortion after this time is forbidden." For this

reason, back in 2004, when 13 Indonesian Muslim scholars

proposed that an exception should be created for pregnancy resulting

from rape or incest, the MUI rejected the proposal, responding that

such an exception would amount to the taking of a life, jinayah

or murder.

Interpretations

of what is haram (prohibited) or halal

(permitted) in Islam similarly impact contraceptive use, attitudes towards

family planning services for unmarried couples and people living with

HIV/AIDS, which I will discuss in a future posting. Yet, the impact

on abortion alone is sufficient to highlight the potential gravity of

restrictive interpretations of Islamic tenets, with the World Health Organization reporting that in 2000 unsafe abortion

accounted for 19 percent of maternal deaths in Southeast Asia. At the

same time, the differences in the abortion laws in the two countries

as well as the divergence of opinion within the Islamic religion itself,

remind us about the necessity to distinguish between religion and religious

fundamentalism. What we see here is the interpretation and application

of religious principles in a way that encroaches on reproductive freedoms

at the cost of women's lives.