The chapters on pregnancy begin from the judge's understanding that a child's life has already begun in the womb. Before birth, the child is a being with a history of earlier lives and relationships, now dependent on the parents. The precept against killing applies to this vulnerable life as well. What happens during pregnancy can therefore have consequences that continue after it has ended.
The word yingling, usually rendered as infant spirit, names the being whose life continues after a pregnancy ends before birth. The judge explains the bond between child and parents through earlier obligations and grievances. A child may have come to repay a debt or to seek repayment. In his account, deliberately ending the pregnancy can turn an earlier good relationship into resentment, or deepen an existing grievance.
The newer City of Weeping for the Untimely Dead receives spirits associated with deliberate termination. Some call for their mothers; another remains curled up in fear, although the judge says that the spirit can now uncurl. The distress is described as continuing beyond the physical event. Some spirits receive a yellow paper authorised by the underworld ruler, allowing them to leave and seek their parents. The judge describes their resentment returning to family life through attachment to a parent, disturbed sleep and conflict with children born later.
An older place, Blood-Pollution City, receives infant spirits from pregnancies that ended unintentionally. The examples include a fetus dying in the womb, a molar pregnancy and illness in the pregnant woman. In this city, the loneliness of the spirits is especially marked. The book gives the two places different inhabitants, even though both concern a life that has ended before birth and continues elsewhere. [1]
The distinction also affects the judge's account of responsibility. Parents whose child lacked the karmic good fortune needed for birth, he says, are not sent to hell for that loss. He nevertheless asks for repentance and dedication of merit, attributing the loss to killing, theft and sexual misconduct by parents and child in previous lives. He retains an explanation in terms of earlier karma while distinguishing these cases from a deliberate decision to end the pregnancy. [2]
For the judge, helping the infant spirit requires both an inward and an outward response. The inward work is sincere acknowledgment and repentance; the outward work is doing good and accumulating merit. He asks parents to address the child with genuine regret and care. A payment to someone else to perform a rite cannot replace that personal response. Where he condemns an intentional act, he also asks for a resolve to abandon it and to help prevent others from doing the same.
Dedication of merit, huixiang, directs the benefit of a good practice towards another being. The judge includes reciting scriptures, giving, making offerings to the Buddha, protecting life and undertaking public works such as repairing bridges and roads. The intention matters: help offered to relieve suffering without demanding repayment carries a different purpose from a purchase made in expectation of a guaranteed result. Parents and other relatives can thus turn their concern for the child into actions that benefit life.
The outcomes depend on the infant spirit's own circumstances and on the merit available. Some receive a human rebirth, some rise to heaven, and a very small number, the judge says, reach the Western Pure Land. The time needed also differs. The account does not assign every bereaved family a single timetable or every spirit the same destination. Its explanation of help rests on a continuing relationship, changed through repentance and good conduct. [3]
Words for pregnancy and loss
The Chinese word duotai covers more than one event in these chapters. Although it often refers to deliberate termination, the judge also uses it for pregnancies that end without the parents intending the loss. English medical terms divide these events differently. Miscarriage means spontaneous pregnancy loss; stillbirth refers to loss later in pregnancy, with the dividing week varying between reporting systems. Induced abortion means a deliberate ending of a pregnancy. The book gives no gestational age for its example of a fetus dying in the womb.