Challenges for Implication of the La-Haraj Rule and Identifying Its Examples in Therapeutic Abortion

The first right of the fetus is living. Therefore, the first order of the Sharia is the prohibition of abortion, except in cases, where it is permitted for the sake of prudence. Neither Islam develops the scope of the abortion permission, like some of the laws of the Western countries, that the life of the fetus is an option on their parents’ hands, nor it limits this scope in such a way that the abortion is not permitted even with distress for mother. Hence, the most important basis for the permission to abortion is the rule of La-Haraj, which is embodied in the Therapeutic Abortion Law approved in 2005. According to this rule, the first sentences that cause distress and constriction are removed from the person. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the mentioned rule in therapeutic abortion and how it is diagnosed. Although with the passage of the Therapeutic Abortion Law an important step has been taken to regulate the issue of abortion, for the determination of the legal examples of abortion, it has not been comprehensively used from the rule as a powerful and dominant rule of Islamic jurisprudence, and in this field, the law has gaps that needs to be resolved. The second point is about how Haraj (distress) is diagnosed with therapeutic abortion. The vast majority of jurists accepted the criterion of the personal character of Haraj and the only thing that is expressed in the law is the assumption of abnormalities in the fetus. However, as it is treated in the abnormal abortion claims, it means accepting a typical criterion; the result that is incompatible with the base of the rule and its nature of appreciative, and it must be corrected.