Question: I am a sick woman who suffers from shortness of breath. On the doctor’s instructions I have aborted two babies, because he advised me that the children could only be delivered by surgery and that the medicines I must take would harm the foetus. With my husband’s consent I carried out two abortions. Is this forbidden, and is any expiation required? Please advise us, and may Allah reward you.

Answer: First: Aborting a pregnancy is not permissible. Once conception has occurred, the pregnancy must be protected, and it is unlawful for the mother to harm it or subject it to any discomfort, for it is a trust that Allah has placed in her womb and it has a right of its own. Therefore it is impermissible to abuse, damage, or destroy it. One does not rely on the physician’s opinion here, for this is a ruling of the Sacred Law, not a matter referred to doctors. The scriptural proofs clearly indicate that abortion and the deliberate termination of pregnancy are forbidden.

As for the claim that she can give birth only by an operation, the matter is simple: surgery is not something dangerous—many women deliver only by surgical procedure. That is no excuse for aborting the pregnancy, even supposing the doctor’s statement is correct, remembering that a doctor is human and prone to error, and his word alone may be open to doubt. It is impermissible to depend on it for aborting a pregnancy. These are serious matters that require caution, and a woman must not toy with pregnancy—conceiving and then aborting—on the basis of the statements of people who are lax or irresponsible.

Second: Concerning the expiation you asked about, if the soul had already been breathed into the foetus and it had begun to move, and she then aborted it, she is deemed to have killed a living being, and an expiation becomes obligatory: freeing a slave; and if she cannot find one, then fasting two consecutive months in repentance to Allah.