History's Great Mass Murderer's
Hitler: 10 million
Stalin: 30 million
Mao: 40 million
Posted on 03/14/2004 1:02:27 AM PST by ambrose
On abortion, a Jewish compromise
If you are looking for a good compromise on the difficult question of abortion, don't look to Roe v. Wade but to Israel. There is only one intelligent, just, ethical position on abortion and it happens to be the Torah viewpoint.
Unfortunately, over 95 percent of Jews and non-Jews are totally ignorant of it.
Scholars on the Left will attest that the Bible, Israeli law and the US Constitution are definitely pro-choice and protect a mother's health. Those equally learned on the Right will swear that these same great documents uphold the pro-life position and protect children.
How can so many knowledgeable people totally contradict each other? In reality, the same Bible both sides cite contains a sensible, compassionate solution that contradicts the standard pro-choice and pro-life positions.
Most people seem to think there are only two sides. The pro-choice position says that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body. This includes ear piercings, haircuts, face lifts, rhinoplasty, wart/hair removal, and fetus removal. In this view, the status of the unborn fetus is like that of skin, hair or excess cartilage.
This is the logic of the pro-choice position, but even those who hold it, except perhaps die-hard activists, would not truly place a fetus and a wart in the same category.
The pro-choice side must ask itself, is destroying an unborn fetus the moral equivalent of cosmetic surgery or a haircut?
The pro-life position holds that a fetus is a full life, so destroying it is murder. Staunch pro-lifers consider abortion the equivalent to the horrific crimes of Charles Manson, Palestinian suicide bombers, and even the Nazis. Some right-wing religious zealots have even coined the phrase "Silent Holocaust" to describe their horror.
This position places pro-lifers into an even more difficult and frightening category. If they are sincere, they are knowingly permitting mass murder to occur on a daily basis, and are possible accomplices to murder.
IMAGINE IF someone were to go into nursery schools daily to murder 20 children, simply because the parents are having financial difficulties due to the burden of child-raising. There is not a decent person anywhere who would not attempt to physically intervene, even at the risk of their own lives.
The fact that there are so few attempts on the lives of abortion doctors proves that the pro-life crowd is intellectually dishonest and does not truly believe its own rhetoric.
But if abortion is neither cosmetic nor murder, then what is it?
Exodus (21: 22-23) states, "If men shall fight, and they collide with a pregnant woman, and she miscarries, but the woman lives, the punishment on the men is financial, as determined by judges. But if the woman dies, there should be capital punishment."
These verses clearly illustrate that the fetus is not a full life. If it were, capital punishment would be called for, as mentioned in the second sentence. We are also shown that the fetus is not a worthless piece of tissue, since financial remuneration is required by the offenders. In addition, there are later references to the health of the mother taking precedence to the life of the fetus.
This biblical approach is the Jewish position, and it is equidistant between the pro-choice and pro-life stances. It states that abortion is not murder ? and not nothing! The only way to enforce this compromise is to allow an immoral act, while at the same time to discourage it strongly, which is exactly what is done in Israel in the majority of cases.
The Jewish biblical position is to create a meaningful societal stigma, so that anyone involved in an abortion knows there are grave moral consequences; that if you have an abortion, you are eliminating potential life and there may be guilt for a very long time.
The Torah's position is that a society which has few or no abortions is a more moral nation. It is good to finally see that Israel is following Torah for guidance on an issue, unlike capital punishment, where Jewish law seems to be ignored.
Our own rhetoric should teach us something. When a pregnant mother feels movement or kicking, she announces, "The baby is kicking." Has any woman in the history of humanity said, "The fetus is kicking"? Yet when a woman wishes to get rid of it, we always use the terminology of "removing the fetus."
A majority of religious and secular people seem to want abortion to be legal, yet do not want to simply "dispose" of developing life. Abortion presents all of us, religious and secular, with a tragic moral choice. Though it is tempting to legislate morality, this is not always the answer, as the case of adultery would seem to prove.
There are very few people, if any, who are pro-adultery; yet no one would seriously consider putting a law on the books prohibiting it. What we prefer is to create a moral society where great religious values produce a powerful stigma against violating the marital bond.
The law should not, by itself, prevent abortion from becoming a form of birth control. Non-legal means should also be considered, such as creating a fund to pay women not to have an abortion but put the baby up for adoption. There are millions of infertile couples who would cherish the gift of a baby.
Can such a system be abused by baby trafficking? Of course ? like anything else in life, and such a system must therefore be carefully monitored.
Abortion is not exclusively a women's rights issue. The Torah understood this and regarded it as an important religious matter. Let us all listen to the Torah's wise compromise rather than fight over morally untenable extremes.
The writer is president of Bloch Graulich Whelan, a communications company in New York City (irwin.graulich@verizon.net).
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1079168639924&p=1006953079865
Both you and the author of the JPost piece are being disingenuous. He makes up his own Biblical quote and you make up your own interpretation.
The Talmudic interpretation, which clearly flies in the face of the text or the Torah, is that everything referred to in Ex 21:22, including the death of the mother is to be salved with financial compensation.
Of course, all of this is besides the point. The issue is whether abortion is permissible or not; not what the punishment should be after the fact.
Nachum Ansel discusses abortion in The Jewish Encyclopedia of Moral and Ethical Issues. You should read this. The bottom line is that abortion is permissible only to save the life of the mother. Ansel references Mishna Ohalot 7:6, which I've read but remember thinking it unclear.
What is not unclear is that Rebecca had the most difficult pregnancy in the Bible. She had twins (habanim=boys) struggling in her womb. The twins continued this struggle throughout their lives, not even interrupting it for their birth. Clearly Jacob and Esau's lives began before their birth. During one of those early womb struggles Rebecca went to inquire of G-d. G-d did not give Rebecca a choice.
ML/NJ
What evidence is there that Israeli is following the Torah position? Israel largely allows abortion on demand. People have to apply for an abortion but it is granted in over 95% of cases. There is no reason to say that Israel is following the Torah on abortion.
You said: Exodus 21:22 means that if the fetus dies, there should be only monetary liability; but if the woman dies, it is capital murder.
from which I inferred that you thought there was a stronger penalty for killing the mother than the baby, and so killing the baby was not as bad as killing the mother. I think Jewish law views such killing equally.
ML/NJ
Yep, everything else is sin.
It is the difference between going 50 mph through a school zone, and 150. Both acts are absolutely heinous and should be stopped, however, we treat them a bit differently in our minds. I apologize for this analogy that in no way addresses the moral seriousness of this issue, but I think it is apt.
I am opposed to abortion, yet to be intellectually honest, if there were two abortions being performed and one 5 year old about to be killed and I could only get to one place on time to prevent it, I know in my heart that I would save the 5 year old.
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