I was doing sidewalk counseling today outside of the local abortion mill this morning, and had a conversation with a man who was passing by and was wondering why we were there.  He seemed to be slanted towards the pro-abort side, but he was civil, and seemed to have an analytical philosophical slant.  I talked about what we were doing there and a little bit about the Buddha’s position on abortion.   After talking for about 20 minutes, I ended up maintaining noble silence, and he left amicably enough.  He seemed to be thinking that talking woman out of killing their babies was inconsistent, but his arguments were odd and flawed.  

Thinking about the conversation later, I realized that the Angulimala Sutta was the Buddha’s charter for First Precept/Non-murder/pro-life outreach.  For those not familiar with the story of Angulimala, it goes like this:

In India at the time, there was a serial killer who wore a necklace made of the little fingers of his victims.  Thus he was called Angulimala (Finger Garland).  The traditional estimate of how many victims he had was 999, but all we know from the sutta itself is that it was at least 50 and probably a lot more.  The king would send groups of warriors out on horseback to deal with him, and Angulimala would kill them all.  The king asked the Buddha if he would do something about the problem, and the Buddha assented.

The Buddha set out on foot to meet Angulimala.  When he was approaching the area where Angulimala was, many locals would yell out to him, “Do not go there priest!  Turn around!  Angulimala the bandit is there!”  But the Buddha continued walking serenely.

 Finally, the Buddha reached the area where Angulimala was.  Angulimala came running after him to kill him, but the Buddha continued to walk serenely.  Though Angulimala was chasing after him, and the Buddha was walking serenely, Angulimala could not catch him.  Angulimala stopped and yelled, “Stop priest!”  The Buddha said back to him, “I have stopped, you have not.”  Angulimala was puzzled, because he knew that sages did not lie.  So he asked the Buddha, “I have stopped running, but you continue to walk.  How is that you say that you have stopped but I have not?”  The Enlightened One replied, “I have forever stopped harming sentient beings.  You have not.”  

The Buddha persuaded Angulimala to stop killing people.  Angulimala became a monk, and eventually attained enlightenment.

Some time later, a pregnant woman visited the venerable monk Angulimala.  She had reason to believe that the childbirth would be dangerous.  Angulimala asked the Buddha about it.  The Buddha told him that he should tell the woman, “By virtue of that I have never harmed a sentient being since my birth in the noble life, may you and your baby be well.”  And, indeed, the baby was born fine and the mother was unharmed.  

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.086.than.html