Study of Abortions Punishment in the Islamic and Iranian Criminal Law

The Famous Jurisprudents of the Shiahs (Imamiyyah), reling on some criteria such as "the age of the foetus", "the marks of the foetus life creation" and "the testimony of the experts", have classified the period of the foetus life into two party: "the preinspiration of the soul (Ruh) period" and "after-soul inspiration period" and upon this classification they have viewed "retaliation (Qisas)" for the voluntary abortion and full blood-money (Diyah) for unintentional one in the soul-inspiration period. The Iranian legislature, accepting this approach, has provided complete diyah for unintentional abortion and retaliation for the intentional one in the soul inspiration period based on articles such as the 487 and 622 of Islamic penal code. This article challenges the scientific-jurisprudentional foundations of this theory and believes that neither of these criteria have scientific validity for distinguishing the soul of the foetus and consequently providing retaliation or complete diyah for foetus before being born living is impossible.