The freedom to sin

Actually, when I sat down to the article I had intended to write on other subject(s). I was going back and forth between the results of the "Perception of Imam-Hatip in Turkey" research conducted on behalf of TİMAV by my friends from the Selçuk University Sociology department, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ertan Özensel, Dr. Mahmut Akın, and Dr. M. Ali Aydemir, and the unseen relationship of the 3x4 education system with the democratic opening. But I must confess that the title of Etyen Mahçupyan's article seemed more "tempting": "The freedom to sin." For now, let me content myself with merely drawing attention to the research of Özensel and his friends, which you may already have followed in the newspapers and on the internet and which fits these days' hot agenda very well, and turn to this interesting subject.

In his article discussing Ali Bulaç's pieces written in response to feminists who approach the abortion issue from the standpoint of "my body is mine," Mahçupyan enters from a very correct place in religious (Islamic) terms, but exits from a place that cannot quite be considered correct:

Since human beings are responsible for their own actions, they must also be free in this action. Without freedom, there is nothing virtuous in having been compelled always to do good; in and of itself there is nothing ethically "good" about this action either. In and of itself, according to Islam, God, although there were already angels who only obey Him, created the human being (the caliph) who can also rebel against Him and also oppose Him.

For an action to be "good," there must be the freedom to do the opposite as well. In an environment in which the ways of committing the forbidden have been completely closed off, and there is no such environment, but suppose there were, the human capacity to realize the divine will would be entirely lost. The human being would cease to be human.

Truly, Islamic political philosophy has generally seen closing the ways of sinning as part of "good politics" for the good of its own citizens. But even in that period, in doing so, a distinction was made, if not in theory then in practice, between sins whose harm touches only the one who commits them and sins that harm others. The discourses and practices that exist against spying leave the individual in society a sufficiently wide field for sin and reward.

For a Muslim, one's body not belonging only to oneself is, beyond a certain point, a matter of dedicating this body to God by one's own free will. A widely accepted point reached by the debates in the sociology of the body is that when our body is not dedicated to God, it does not easily belong to us either. The body is not a phenomenon that exists without the intervention of different cultures, ideologies, or political powers upon it. Since the body cannot exist freely on its own, it is like a metaphor that always carries other wills upon it.

Being a Muslim is, in a way, like promising not to carry anyone else's mark but God's on one's own body. The covenant of tawhid can be read somewhat in this way, and one reason the fight over dress and clothing is so fierce is power over the body. Though even this covenant over the body does not completely eliminate different dispositions over the body. Moreover, starting from the fact that the body can never be independent-free anyway, it cannot be expected of anyone that everyone dedicate their body to God. What is fundamental here in Islamic terms is freedom. Just as it cannot be expected of non-Muslims that they use their own bodies like a Muslim, the freedom of Muslims in their dispositions over this body cannot be debated either. However...

Up to here is where Mahçupyan approaches the subject correctly. However, when the use of the body turns into a transgression against the existence of other bodies, it is not possible to take this within the scope of "freedom of sin," or at best it may be possible to take it within the framework of the freedom of a sin like "murder," like "theft," or like "bribery."

Of course it is possible to treat abortion within the framework of the mother's freedom to sin. But it is a freedom within the scope of the other crimes/sins in question. Because this is not a sin that concerns only oneself. Here another body comes into play, and the mother's sin ceases to be an individual sin that concerns only her, and concerns those who have the responsibility of protecting "a life that cannot protect itself."

So, to whom do you think the "responsibility for the one who cannot protect itself" belongs?

In abortion debates, since ancient times all religions have treated the matter within the framework of "sin" and have shown no relaxation on this. Of course, this attitude has not caused abortion to disappear entirely even among religious people. And when it is practiced among religious people (like many other sins), the matter does not cease to be a sin either.

However, looking at the philosophies that man has developed from his own head (liberal, socialist, capitalist), it is also plainly seen how unprotected that being who cannot defend itself remains. All kinds of scientific research and philosophical arguments can very easily tempt one into giving up that defenseless being. Yet God the Most Merciful (Rahîm), who from the moment it falls into the womb begins to shape it with His own mercy, by the law He has set on this matter has also protected it from the ignorance, irresponsibility, and selfishness of its own kind.

For this reason, in my opinion it is not possible for devout Muslims (or Christians-Jews) to conduct a debate on abortion. No datum is enough to change their attitude on this. Because between their attitude and the will over the shaping of that being, miraculous from whichever side you look, there is a nontransferable harmony.