I'm in the middle of preparing a presentation for the Pro-Life group at my school, and I thought the content could also make for a good post. I decided to segment it into the various religions so as to not make each post too long, as well as make them easier to find if anyone is looking for something specific.
Really, the only extrabiblical Jewish source of any note in this argument is the Talmud, which consists of supposed traditions from various historical rabbis. The first is Talmud Yevamot 69b:10, which goes as follows: “Rav Ḥisda said: She immerses and partakes of teruma [wave offering] only until forty days after her husband’s death, when there is still no reason for concern, as if she is not pregnant then she is not pregnant. And if she is pregnant, until forty days from conception the fetus is merely water. It is not yet considered a living being, and therefore it does not disqualify its mother from partaking of teruma.” This is not where I would fall from either a spiritual perspective of a pro-life perspective, but it is certainly much better than the modern idea of abortion as a form of birth control that can be used any time one wants. In addition, according to Jewish tradition, the penalties go way back. In Talmud Sanhedrin 57b.3 and Hilkhot Melakhim 9.4, the authors say that Noah and his family were forbidden from killing a fetus, and that the murder of a fetus, which we just established counted at most forty days after conception, was punishable by the death penalty. In the Talmud Niddah 30b, the author goes into great detail to describe the life of the fetus in the womb. In the middle of this description, he says, "there are no days when a person is in a more blissful state than those days when he is a fetus in his mother’s womb," which very clearly personifies the child as they are within the womb.
Islam, in my research, appeared to be comparably the most friendly towards abortion, with one hadith saying, “Allah's Messenger, the true and truly inspired said, "(The matter of the Creation of) a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days, and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things. He is ordered to write down his (i.e. the new creature's) deeds, his livelihood, his (date of) death, and whether he will be blessed or wretched (in religion). Then the soul is breathed into him." (Sahih al-Bukhari 3036; 49:19). In this case, the fetus is really only considered a human being after 120 days, or 17 weeks, about midway through the second trimester. While this policy hasn't been put into practice in many Muslim countries, which tend to be very pro-life, it does technically allow for the greatest "access to abortions" on this list, which was honestly very surprising.
Hinduism and Buddhism, on the contrary, are very against abortion, probably the least friendly to it that I have seen, equal to Christianity. In a Vedic hymn, Vishnu, who is one of the primary deities and is the primary deity for some sects, is referred to as the "guardian of the future infant" (Rig Veda 7.36.9) and in another text, the God of mercy takes away people's sins and then puts them on the abortionist as the scapegoat (Atharvaveda 6.112.3). In addition, abortion is equated to some of the most heinous crimes, eating sacred cow, marrying people below your caste, stealing, homicide, impiety, and incest, and it can result in bad reincarnations, a lowering of caste, and even being cast out of society as a whole (Satapatha Brahmana 3.1.2.21, Guatama 21.9, Apastamba 1.7.21.7-8). As far as the actual nature of the infant, Buddhism defines a human being in this way: "from the mind’s first arising, from (the time of) consciousness becoming first manifest in a mother’s womb until the time of death, here meanwhile he is called a human being," directly stating that the infant is alive and valuable in the womb (Book of the Discipline 3.73).
So yeah, if someone tries to tell you that you're just pro-life because you're Christian, you can teach them about embryology or simply respond "literally every other traditional religion agrees with me, to greater or lesser extents."
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