Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions

by Daniel C. Maguire (Editor)

This book presents the work of the "Sacred Choices Initiative" of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health, and Ethics. The purpose of this Packard and Ford Foundation supported initiative is to attempt to change international discourse on family planning and to rescue
this debate from superficial sloganeering by drawing on the moral stores of the world's major and indigenous religions. In many of the world's religions there is a restrictive and pro-natalist view on family planning, and this is one legitimate reading of those religious traditions. As the essays in
this volume demonstrate, however, this is not the only legitimate or orthodox view. These authors show that the paramaters of orthodoxy are wider and gentler than that, and that the great religious traditions are wiser and more variegated and nuanced than a simple repetition of the most conservative
views would suggest. This theme is carried out in essays on each of the world's major religious traditions, written by scholar practitioners of those faiths.

Genres: Religion

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Sasha Wolf]

Essays setting out the arguments for contraception and abortion in Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, Thai Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Yoruba traditional religion, indigenous American traditional religions, Confucianism and Taoism, with essays on population growth and public policy to provide some context. The latter appear last, but might have been better at the beginning. The quality of the articles is quite variable, as is the approach taken (sometimes academic, sometimes apologetical and sometimes polemical). The chapter on Native American religions is particularly adept at explaining the significance of reproductive issues for Native American women today in terms of their experience of oppression as well as their religious traditions.