abortion and halacha

[cellio]

This afternoon I was reading the dead-tree edition of Moment magazine and came across an excellent article on how anti-abortion laws conflict with halacha. They only seem to have the first few paragraphs on their web site, alas. (They sometimes have full articles. Maybe there's a time lag.)

To summarize, Jewish law does not hold (as much of Christianity appears to) tha life begins at conception; rather, human life begins at birth. (Specifically at crowning, as I recall.) The torah covers causing the death of a fetus; it's a property crime. Killing a person, of course, is not. So abortion is permitted under Jewish law. Not desirable, but permitted.

Now here's where the halachic problem with the agenda of the far right comes in: under Jewish law, there are cases where abortion is mandatory. It is unambiguous that this is required to save the life of the mother; the rabbi generally agree that it is also required to preserve the health of the mother.

Most pro-choice folks (certainly myself included) argue on the grounds of individual liberty, but the author of this article points out that as Jews we should be considering the halachic issue, too. The rest of this entry is me talking, not the author.

If Bush gets his way (through legislation or by stacking the Supreme Court), we could end up in a situation where national law forbids the correct practice of our religion, specifically as regards to how we treat other people. I've been trying to think of an analogy for Christians (staying away from murder because it's emotional), and the closest I can come up with is: suppose the government required you to bear false witness against your neighbor, with the result that he would be criminally or economically ruined. (And if you think that can't happen...) That's a violation of one of the ten commandments. Would you be outraged? Would you heed that law? Requiring the Jewish community to stand by while an actual life is ruined in favor of a fetus is kind of like that. A Jew who does that violates laws (both between man and man, and betweeen man and God) that we take every bit as seriously as Christians take their laws that say life begins at conception. But Christians do not sin if they fail to prevent an abortion; we do in some cases if we fail to perform one.

If religion has no bearing on government, then the anti-abortion lobby has to rework its arguments. If religion does have bearing on government, then all religions must be considered, not just the one most popular with lawmakers. Some of the founders of the country may have been Christian (many were Deists), but this is not a Christian nation. Not then and certainly not now.

Comments

[geekosaur]

My understanding is that levirate marriage is currently forbidden, i.e. a levir is required to perform the refusal ceremony. Like the ban on polygamy, this is an adaptation of halacha to conform to modern legal codes. (Which isn't an option in the abortion case; neither levirate marriage nor polygamy is halachically mandatory, whereas preserving the life and/or health of the mother is halachically mandatory in the case where a developing fetus poses a significant threat to either.)

(Of course, as seems to be the case a lot, my understanding could be wrong....)

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember learning that the ban on yibum and polygamy were both instituted because it was felt that there were no longer being done with the proper motivation (i.e., only for reasons of physical desire).

[geekosaur]

One reference (the first I could find quickly): Judaism 101

According to the Torah and the Talmud, a man was permitted to marry more than one wife, but a woman could not marry more than one man. Although polygyny was permitted, it was never common. The Talmud never mentions any rabbi with more than one wife. Around 1000 C.E., Ashkenazic Jewry banned polygyny because of pressure from the predominant Christian culture. It continued to be permitted for Sephardic Jews in Islamic lands for many years. To the present day, Yemenite and Ethiopian Jews continue to practice polygyny; however, the modern state of Israel allows only one wife. Those who move to Israel with more than one wife are permitted to remain married to all of the existing wives, but cannot marry additional ones.

(emphasis mine)

I believe the Talmud discourages polygamy for the reason you specified, but it did not outright ban it.