If the wife is sick and cannot bear the hardships of pregnancy, should she abort the foetus?

Question

Praise be to Allah.

If the wife is sick and cannot bear the hardships of
pregnancy, then it is permissible to abort the foetus within the first forty
days of the pregnancy, according to the view of a number of scholars.

It says in a report issued by the Council of Senior
Scholars:

1 – It is not permissible to abort pregnancy at various
stages thereof, except for a shar’i reason, and within very narrow limits.

2 – If the pregnancy is in the first stage, which is the
first forty days, and aborting it is for a legitimate shar’i purpose or to
ward off harm, then it is permissible to abort it. As for aborting it at
this stage for fear of hardship in raising children or for fear of not being
able to afford the expenses of raising and educating them, or for fear of
their future or because the couple is happy with the number of children they
already have, that is not permissible.

3 – It is not permissible to abort a pregnancy if it is a
‘alaqah or mudghah (i.e., in the second and third forty-day periods of
pregnancy) unless a committee of trustworthy doctors has determined that
allowing it to continue will pose a danger to the safety of the mother
because they fear that she will die if it continues. In that case it is
permissible to abort it after trying all other means to avoid risk to the
mother.

4 – After the third stage, and after four months of pregnancy
have been completed, it is not permissible to abort it unless a number of
trustworthy specialists have determined that leaving the foetus in his
mother’s womb will cause her death, and after exhausting all means of trying
to save his life. A concession allowing abortion subject to these conditions
is only granted so as to ward off the greater of the two evils and achieve
the greater of the two interests. End quote from al-Fataawa al-Jaami’ah
(3/1056).

And Allaah knows best.