Is it permissible to abort a fetus afflicted with thalassemia before the fourth month of pregnancy, knowing that the abortion of deformed fetuses has been permitted in some fatwas?
Thalassemia is a genetic disease that affects blood production. If both parents are carriers of the disease, there is a 25% chance that a child will be born with the severe form. Abortion is forbidden by Islamic law, whether before the ensoulment of the fetus, because it is destruction of offspring, or after, because it is taking a life unjustly. Scholars have made an exception for two cases in which abortion is permissible: if the pregnancy poses a definite danger to the mother's life, or if the fetus dies in its mother's womb. Since the subject of the question does not fall under these two cases, abortion is not permissible, whether before the fourth month or after it.
Summary from Ftawy's records · added here
Reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.
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- 80004
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- Summary from Ftawy's records, reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.
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