What a great question.
I think it goes back to cause.
God gave Moses the law and for capital punishment, Scripture says:
Ex. 21:12 He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.
Along the same lines if the pregnancy is going to cause the mother to die wouldn't the correct thing be to end the pregnancy, kill the baby?
Killing babies is always wrong.
Ex. 21:12 He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.
Along the same lines if the pregnancy is going to cause the mother to die wouldn't the correct thing be to end the pregnancy, kill the baby?
I'm not sure it would be along the same lines because the above is indeed a punishment for a crime of specific intent. The very next line prohibits the death penalty for being the cause of a death by accident. Clearly we could not say that the baby had any intent. Perhaps we could say "caused by accident" but that would prohibit the death penalty.
Now, another thing is whether this could be put under the category of crime. Would this even be manslaughter (unintentional but unlawful killing)? I don't think so since we cannot consider existing to be unlawful. If I caught your cold and then died from pneumonia you would not be guilty of even manslaughter (or anything else absent intent). This would all seem to me to go against the idea of justifiable abortion.
Plus, we have laws saying that commission of crime is not even legally possible until a certain age is reached. I don't know if there were any such rules in the OT.