For those of you who don't know what a partial birth abortion, it is in my opinion quite a hideous thing. It happens during the pregnancy, when the fetus is about five months old. A lot of the fetuses would actually survive if they were taken out of the body and for that reason, in order to abort them, they kill them while they are in the body by moving the fetus around so that they get the head, they drill a hole in the back of the head and they suck out the brain in order to kill them. Then they are able to take the body out. In normal abortions they just rip out the arms and the legs, while the fetus is inside the body. They take it out, crush the body and put it in a little vacuum cleaner to suck out anything that was left behind. This is abortion - if you don't already know about it - and partial birth abortion is about babies that could possible survive yet killing them in a very hideous way.
So, if you want to learn about abortion and how wrong it basically is from a Buddhist perspective, that would be very good to learn about.
What would you say to somebody who looks over your shoulder as you are looking at these things? It really depends a lot on checking out whether this person is actually interested or not. A lot of people know nothing about abortion, many of you may know nothing about it. It is worth knowing about it, because it is a major issue on the planet today. In the United States everyday there are about 4,000 abortions. There are a over a million people a year, of little babies that could become people, over a million babies. Australia has the same percentage on average, as America does - for its population. In general, parts of Europe have only half of that. Still that means 600,000 babies a year - 2,000 a day, whatever it is. Some parts of Europe are actually higher than that and some are lower.
It is a major issue. From a Buddhist perspective it is killing and it is not to be done as a Buddhist unless you want to take the Karmic result of killing. So it is very valuable to learn about, very valuable to understand and get all the information you can, especially if you wish to talk to others about it. It is a very touchy subject and many people get angry about it with very little knowledge. If a person is truly interested in learning about it while you are looking at it on the computer, it is important to have as much information as you can. When I give these statistics to people, a lot of people go like, "What?" 4,000 babies a day, in America alone. How do doctors do it? How do doctors want to kill these fetuses all the time? Why do they want to rip apart a little tiny baby? It is weird. So the more information you have is very important if you do ever want to try to talk to other people about it.