Punishment of Abortion and Necessity to Amend Article 622 of Islamic Penal Code

The main objective of the present paper is to shed light on various kinds of abortion and their punishments as envisaged in the Penal Code of Iran and removal of some doubts about them as well as their jurisprudential foundations. According to Iranian Penal Code and Imamya jurisprudence abortion is unlawful from the time of inception. Even Article 622 of the Islamic Penal Code and Article 91 of the Islamic Punishments envisage some punishment for abortion. The present article argues that on the basis of Islamic sources the punishment of retaliation (qisas) is not fair for purposeful abortion. Hence it is necessary to revise the Article 622 of the Penal Code. Particularly, retaliation for the purposeful abortion is against the social exigencies. In other words, the main objective of law and lawgiving is to maintain security, law and order and realize justice, but retaliation of purposeful abortion will serve to the contrary and will depict jurisprudence – which according to Imam Khomeini is an instruction for man's life from cradle to the grave – as a violent discipline.