Theosophy in general answers: “At no age as under no circumstance whatever is a murder justifiable!” and occult Theosophy adds:—“yet it is neither from the standpoint of law, nor from any argument drawn from one or another orthodox ism that the warning voice is sent forth against the immoral and dangerous practice of foeticide, but rather because in occult philosophy both physiology and psychology show its disastrous consequence.” In the present case, the argument does not deal with the causes but with the effects produced. Our philosophy goes so far as to say that, if the Penal Code of most countries punishes attempts at suicide, it ought, if at all consistent with itself, to doubly punish foeticide as an attempt to double suicide. For, indeed, when even successful and the mother does not die just then, it still shortens her life on earth to prolong it with dreary percentage in Kamaloka, the intermediate sphere between the earth and the region of rest, a place which is no “St. Patrick’s purgatory,” but a fact, and a necessary halting place in the evolution of the degree of life. The crime committed lies precisely in the willful and sinful destruction of life, and interference with the operations of nature, hence—with KARMA—that of the mother and the would-be future human being. The sin is not regarded by the occultists as one of a religious character,— for, indeed, there is no more of spirit and soul, for the matter of that, in a foetus or even in a child before it arrives at self-consciousness, than there is in any other small animal,— for we deny the absence of soul in either mineral, plant or beast, and believe but in the difference of degree. But foeticide is a crime against nature. Of course the sceptic of whatever class will sneer at our notions and call them absurd superstitions and “unscientific twaddle.” But we do not write for sceptics. We have been asked to give the views of Theosophy (or rather of occult philosophy) upon the subject, and we answer the query as far as we know.
Blavatsky, Is Foeticide A Crime, CW 5:107-08
