Whose is the sin of being forced to have an abortion?

During the era of the one-child family planning policy, when women became pregnant with a second or third child, they were forced to have abortions for fear of being punished for exceeding the birth quota. To whom does the karmic offense of such an abortion belong? When one is coerced by authorities, compelled by external conditions and has no choice but to abort—not of one's own volition—the one who undergoes the abortion is without offense. Those who formulated the policy, the executors at every level, and the people who actually performed the abortion procedures all bear offenses to varying degrees. Therefore, those who hold high office and wield great power also bear great responsibility. Whether a policy is appropriate or not affects the interests of millions and hundreds of millions of people, including their very lives; the karma involved is especially grave.

The doctors and nurses who perform abortion procedures all have evil karma; they have formed unwholesome karmic ties with sentient beings and taken on karmic responsibility. Even when not involved in killing such as abortion, as soon as one saves a person, one forms unwholesome ties with that person's karmic creditors and takes on that patient's karmic obstructions. This is why hospital doctors have relatively shorter lifespans than ordinary people. The virtue of healing the sick and saving lives as seen through worldly eyes is in fact not truly virtuous. Likewise, professions such as lawyers and judges are all professions that bear karmic obstructions; all of them must take on the karma of others.

Bodhisattvas generally do not choose to hold official positions. Even when they could serve as kings or prime ministers, they decline. Governing a country requires establishing prisons and other institutions of detention, dealing with criminals, and coping with wars—all of which involve grave matters of life and death, and if handled poorly, result in grave evil karma. There are also policy issues concerning people's livelihood, such as taxation, as well as matters of laws, rules, and regulations; if handled poorly, these too constitute grave evil karma.

Within the teaching profession, there are also those who transmit the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. Most of the elites in various sectors of society have transmitted some measure of greed, hatred, and delusion, because they themselves have not eliminated their afflictions, and their bodily, verbal, and mental actions all accord with greed, hatred, and delusion. There is also the gaming industry, and industries such as film, television, and short dramas, all of which spread the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion along with methods of committing evil deeds. Even within Buddhism, which advocates the elimination of greed, hatred, and delusion, there are many who transmit these afflictions to sentient beings; among them, laypeople transmit the most, for they are after all too close to worldly life. Greed, hatred, and delusion are hard to subdue; they arise constantly, and the afflictions are unknowingly passed on, tainting sentient beings. Some people do not transmit afflictions unknowingly, but rather knowingly commit transgressions, deliberately letting sentient beings be tainted by afflictions so that they themselves may profit from it.