The Council of Senior Scholars issued the following statement:
1 – It is not permissible to abort a pregnancy at any stage unless there is a legitimate reason, and within very precise limits.
2 – If the pregnancy is in the first stage, which is a period of forty days, and aborting it serves a legitimate purpose or will ward off harm, then it is permissible to abort it. But aborting it at this stage for fear of the difficulty of raising children or of being unable to bear the costs of maintaining and educating them, or for fear for their future or because the couple feel that they have enough children – this is not permissible.
3 – It is not permissible to abort a pregnancy when it is an ‘alaqah (clot) or mudghah (chewed lump of flesh) (which are the second and third periods of forty days each) until a trustworthy medical committee has decided that continuing the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s wellbeing, in that there is the fear that she will die if the pregnancy continues. It is permissible to abort it once all means of warding off that danger have been exhausted.
4 – After the third stage, and after four months have passed, it is not permissible to abort the pregnancy unless a group of trustworthy medical specialists decide that keeping the foetus in his mother’s womb will cause her death, and that should only be done after all means of keeping the foetus alive have been exhausted. A concession is made allowing abortion in this case so as to ward off the greater of two evils and to serve the greater of two interests.
Al-Fataawa al-Jaami’ah, 3/1056
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How much Iraqi children are worth?
[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]In 1996 then-UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, in reference to years of U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iraq, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]To which Ambassador Albright responded, “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]That remark caused no public outcry. In fact, in January the following year Albright was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as President Clinton’s secretary of state. In her opening statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was considering her appointment, she said, “We will insist on maintaining tough UN sanctions against Iraq unless and until that regime complies with relevant Security Council resolutions.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]Apparently no member of the committee asked her about her statement on 60 Minutes. [/FONT]