Jewish Perspectives


IV: Judaism vs. Christianity: "ensoulment" and Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin
In the effort to resolve the abortion debate, a common Christian move is to argue that human life (as equivalent to moral personhood) begins with "ensoulment," with God's placing an immortal soul in the material body of the fetus. Diverse Christian views claim that ensoulment occurs at conception, at the end of the first trimester, or at birth: the latter two views, of course, would allow for abortion, while the first view (ensoulment occuring at conception) would (largely) forbid abortion as the moral equivalent of murder. But the debate over when ensoulment occurs, Feldman points out, is essentially a Christian debate.

From the Jewish standpoint, this [debate] must be declared irrelevant. It's not when does the soul enter, it's what kind of a soul enters? (84)
Judaism and the forms of Christianity shaped by Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin give two very different answers to this question - again resulting in two divergent views on abortion. The Augustinian doctrine argues that all human beings are born with a soul diseased and distorted by the sin of their primordial parents in the Garden: this further means that

...a tainted soul enters the fetus which must be cleansed by baptism to save him or her from eternal perdition. In line with the doctrine of original sin, each individual soul inherits the taint of its primordial ancestors. When St. Fulgentius of the sixth century was asked when that stain attaches to the person, he replied that it begins with conception. Hence the concern with allowing the fetus to be brought to term so that it can be baptized; otherwise it is condemned to death in both worlds, making abortion clearly worse than murder.
It should be noted that Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin represents a dramatic turn from earlier Christian and Jewish understandings of the second Genesis creation story, and corresponding conceptions of sin and the human soul (for a summary, see Ess, "Reading Adam and Eve: Re-Visions of the Myth of Woman's Subordination to Man," in: Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook , edited by Marie M. Fortune and Carol J. Adams. New York: Continuum Press, 1995.) In any case, given the acceptance of the Augustinian doctrine in Roman Catholic and much of (western) Protestant Christianities, the strict prohibition against abortion is perfectly consistent:

It must accordingly be said that when Catholics reputedly decide to "let the mother die" rather than allow an abortion, they are not at all being cruel, merely consistent with a logical concern. The mother has been presumably baptized as an infant; let her die and "go to her reward." But let the child be brought to term and baptized and saved from perdition. So sincere is this concern that theologians at the Sorbonne in the nineteenth century invented a baptismal syringe, wherewith to baptize a fetus in utero in the event of a spontaneous abortion, a miscarriage. [ftn. 10: St. Fulgentius, De Fide 27, cited by E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (1908), vol. I, pp. 416-17. On the use of the Syringe in baptism, see H. W. Haggard, Devils, Drugs and Doctors (New York, 1929), p. 4.] (84)
[John T. Noonan, representing the Catholic perspective in these materials, insists that Christian opposition to abortion has nothing to do with ensoulment or concerns regarding infant baptism.]

As with the debate over ensoulment, the debate over original sin remains a debate within Christian communities. Judaism preserves the earlier Jewish and pre-Augustinian understanding of the Garden story as a story about individual sinfulness - sinfulness which can be atoned for and overcome by individuals. Judaism thereby squarely rejects the Augustinian teaching - that the soul emplaced in the fetus is already diseased with a sinful nature inherited by all human beings. Accordingly, the especially Catholic sense of urgency regarding the baptism of the fetus otherwise condemned is

...a concern that the Jewish community cannot share. Having no such concept of original sin, we recite daily in our prayers something that comes directly from the Talmud: "My God, the soul with which thou hast endowed me is pure." We inherit a pure soul, which becomes contaminated only by our own misdeeds. By that token, early abortion would send a fetus to heaven in a state of pristine purity! (84)
Moreover, Judaism finds the debate over the time of ensoulment to be as irresoluble as it appears to be in Christian circles - but responds to the debate differently:

While the Talmud does discuss the time of ensoulment - is it when the child is conceived, or at the first trimester, at birth or, as one opinion has it, when the child first answers Amen? - but then dismisses the question as both unanswerable and irrelevant to the abortion question. [ftn. 11: Sanhedrin 110b; Yalkut to Psalms, no. 689.] (84)
[return to Outline] [return to Noonan]

Jewish Perspectives



V: Jewish doctrine on abortion: allowable, even required, when the life of the mother is at stake
Given that abortion does not equate to murder - in the case of threat to the mother's life, abortion becomes a requirement:

Since the mother is not allowed to choose suicide, abortion in that extreme case becomes mandatory. This is the sense of the fundamental passage in the Talmud bearing on the subject. The Mishna (Oholot 7,6) puts it this way:
"If a woman has [life-threatening] difficulty in childbirth, the embryo within her must be dismembered limb by limb [if necessary], because her life [hayyeha] takes precedence over its life [yayyav]. Once its head (or its greater part) has emerged, it may not be touched, for we may not set aside one life [nefesh] for another."
The justification for abortion then is that before the child emerges we do not yet have a nefesh. The life of the fetus is only potential, and that cannot compete with actual human life. (84-85)

[return to Outline]
VI: "Choose life!"? Two traditions, two interpretations
A clear divergence emerges, then, between Judaism, as it holds to the Hebrew Bible as understood through the rabbinic traditions crystalized in the Talmud, and those Christianities dependent upon a Greek (mis)translation of the Hebrew Bible and Augustine's radical revision of the second Genesis creation story. Not surprisingly, these two faith traditions read the same Bible differently in other ways. Feldman reports a discussion he had with a Catholic woman, who argued

"Well, the Bible says, 'Therefore, choose life.' Since abortion is the killing of life, how can you allow it?" "Because," I replied," when you see 'choose life' in the Bible and when we [Jews] see 'choose life' in the Bible, we are both seeing different things. From a Catholic standpoint, which is essentially other-worldly in orientation, you see 'life' as life in the next world. Otherwise, why would you ever allow the death of the mother? That, too, is taking life. Yet, you feel that the mother, having already been baptized, can 'choose life' in the next world. But when we see those words, we think of life in this world, and that's why we strive to save the mother, to save existing life. How do I know this? Because the Talmud gives the rationale for the principle that 'saving life sets aside all else in the Torah,' that the Sabbath and even Yom Kippur must be violated in order to protect or preserve life or health. The rationale is simple: 'Violate [for the patient] this Sabbath, so that he will be able to keep many Sabbaths.' In other words, we want to 'choose life' here on earth, and a therapeutic abortion is therefore indicated, even mandated." (85)
[return to Outline]
VII: Further considerations in Jewish teaching: "left" and "right" debates over the circumstances of allowable and necessary abortions
Feldman goes on to note that the Talmud considered justifying abortion on the view that the fetus is a rodef, an aggressor, where killing an aggressor (if necessary) is justified in order to save the intended victim. But the Talmud further considers the possibility that it is the mother who is the aggressor - i.e., when "The life-threatening impasse could be the result of a narrow cervix, or any physiological condition of the mother which makes continuation of the pregnancy a threat to her life." (86) This, in turn, is rejected:

If the condition is the mother's, how is the child the pursuer? Rather, says the Talmud, "she is being pursued from Heaven." That is, the pursuit is an "act of God," desired or intended neither by mother or child. The argument is therefore inadmissible and, in any case, unnecessary: it's simply that the fetus is not yet a person with equal title to life. (86)
Maimonides nonetheless uses the rodef analogy in his summary of the Law Code, to articulate what Feldman characterizes as the conservative view of abortion in Judaism:

"This, too, is a [negative] Commandment: Not to take pity on the life of a pursuer. Therefore the Sages ruled that when a woman has difficulty in giving birth, one dismembers the fetus in her womb - either with drugs or by surgery - because it is like a pursuer seeking to kill her. Once its head has emerged, it may not be touched, for we may not set aside one life for another; this is the natural course of the world." [ftn. 13: Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law , pp. 275ff.]

Jewish Perspectives


While abortion is acknowledged as killing, there is a crucial difference between killing and murder. As an example, Feldman reports the judgment of Rabbi Issar Unterman, late Chief Rabbi of Israel, who was "firmly opposed to abortion except under extreme circumstances." (86) While he calls it "akin to murder," he also relates the situation of a Jewish girl impregnated by a German soldier in WW I. He took her to a physician for an abortion.

The physician, who was Jewish, declined to perform the abortion, insisting it was against his principles. The soldier then drew his gun and threatened the doctor: either you abort or I will shoot you. Rabbi Unterman declared that, had he been asked the question by the doctor he would have told him to abort. If abortion were really murder, the doctor would have had to martyr himself, to lay down his life rather than comply. Much as I would like to call it murder, he said in effect, the clear sense of the Jewish law is that it is not. (86)
Feldman then comments:

Rabbi Unterman stood squarely in the tradition of Maimonides and, in fact, all rabbinic teaching on the subject of abortion can be said to align itself with either Maimonides, on the right, or with Rashi, on the left. The "rightist" approach begins with the assumption, formulated by Unterman, that abortion is "akin to murder" and therefore allowable only in cases of corresponding gravity, such as saving the life of the mother. The approach then builds down from that strict position to embrace a broader interpretation of life-saving situations. These include a threat to her health, for example, and perhaps a threat to her sanity in terms of suicidal possibilities, but excludes any lesser reasons. The more "liberal" approach, based on Rashi's affirmation that the fetus is not a human person, is associated with another former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ben Zion Uziel. [ftn. 15: Responsa, Mishpetei Uziel, vol. III, Hoshen Mishpat, no. 47.] This approach assumes that no real prohibition against abortion exists and builds up from that ground to safeguard against indiscriminate or unjustified thwarting of potential life. This school of thought includes the example of Rabbi Yair Bachrach in the seventeenth century, whose classic Responsum saw no legal bar to abortion but would not permit it in the case before him.[ftn. 16: Responsa Havvot Yair, no. 31.] The case was of a pregnancy conceived in adultery; the woman "in deep remorse," wanted to destroy the fruit of her sin. The Responsum concludes by refusing to sanction abortion, not on legal grounds, but on sociological ones, as a safeguard against further immorality. (87)
[And even here, there are still more liberal opinions - i.e., those of Rabbi Jacob Emden, who disagreed with this ruling, affirming instead that "the woman's welfare" included not only life and health, but also the avoidance of "great pain." (87)]

While there is thus disagreement over the circumstances which justify an abortion, the central moral argument - stressing the life, health, and wel-being of the mother - is not debated, but shared:

Maternal rather than fetal indications are the rule for both schools of thought. The rightist position certainly considers only the mother, but so does the leftist one. The latter school includes even the mother's less than life-and-death welfare, expressed in the words "great pain," and based on the principle that tza'ara d'gufah kadim [i.e., the teaching that her welfare, avoidance of her pain, comes first: see p. 80]. (87)
Feldman then summarizes what he takes to be the distilled teachings of Rabbinic rulings on abortion, using the example of a woman who had German measles or took Thalidomide during the pregnancy. If she were to request an abortion because she feared that the child might be deformed, the request would be refused: we do not know that the child will be deformed, "And if so, how do you know that such a condition is worse for him than not being born?" (88) But if she were to say that the possibility of the child being born deformed caused her extreme mental anguish, her rabbi would rule differently:

Now the fetal indication has become a maternal indication, and all the considerations for her welfare are now brought to bear. The fetus is unknown, future, potential, part of the "secrets of God"; the mother is known, present, human and seeking compassion. (88)
While there is thus a spectrum of Jewish positions regarding abortion (though not to the degree found among Christians, i.e., as a significant number of Christians oppose abortion on any grounds), Feldman goes on to point out that Judaism holds a "starkly illiberal" consensus regarding neonatal defectives. Here it is strongly "right to life":

From the moment of birth, the life of the infant is as inviolate as that of the mother. Its right to life is then absolute. Before birth, however, right to life is not the applicable concept; it is "right to be born." The right to be born is not absolute, but relative to the welfare of the mother. There is no right to be born any more than a right to be conceived. Use of the "right to life" slogan by antiabortion people is therefore essentially misleading. (89)
This further means a resolute rejection of any distinction between the life of the mother and the life of the child in terms of "quality of life":

...we reject any considerations of relative quality; all existing life is equally precious; the operative slogan is rather "sanctity of life." From the moment of its birth, the life of the newborn is sacred, as indivisibly and undifferentially sacred as that of the mother. This is the true "right to life" position. Whereas "right to be born" is relative to the welfare of the mother, "right to life" is not relative to the mother's or anyone's welfare. Right to life means that no person need apologize for living, neither to parents, to physicians, to society, or to self. (89)

Even visuals don't help them. Do they need to hear the baby cry in utero?

__________________
"JOHN J OBRIEN...ALQAIDA SATANIST+NWO HOMO CUNTROLLER" "JJ OBRIEN...INTERNATIONAL INTERNET TERRORIST."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyR41JbpL_g

There you go palerider I have given you plenty to start to educate yourself with.

Have fun and learn something .

I have other things to do today. I don't have time to play with you.

How about these visuals ocean breeze? These are children who were alive till war mongers like you killed them.


How do these visuals grab you?











You ocean breeze can take your baby killing butt and try to explain to God why you cheered as these babies died.

people like you ocean breeze make me sick.


Killed any babies lately ocean breeze?

Cheered while any babies were killed lately ocean breeze?

Now don't lie , we all know you have.

You stupid hillbilly, none of that stuff even proved your point. I, or anyone else, could easily go to the catechism (which has been done before for you) and copy a couple of lines to counter everything you just copied.

Your method is to put forth as much material as possible (via copy and paste) and you then think that volume matters . . . . even if 90% of it has nothing to do with what you are trying to argue.

Now, when someone such as PaleRider puts forth easy questions to you, you avoid them and go off on more tangents. You are unable to debate because you can't form any responses to what people argue - that is why you post the way you do - because you simply aren't smart enough to have a discussion. Since you aren't smart enough, you choose the avoidance method.

Anyone who has read your posts and has a brain recognizes this.

Go fuck yourself Paula, you ignorant bitch. This is exactly why you deserve to be treated like the fucking ignorant cunt that you are.

People like you make me sick. Ignorant fucks who pervert religion to satisfy their own beliefs. Fucking cunt.

Agreed.

__________________
"JOHN J OBRIEN...ALQAIDA SATANIST+NWO HOMO CUNTROLLER" "JJ OBRIEN...INTERNATIONAL INTERNET TERRORIST."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyR41JbpL_g

Yah, we love these kids getting killed but don't like unborns getting killed, that makes perfect sense now doesn't it?

And even though the same people might say they don't like the war, they are
just lying for absolutely no reason aren't they peach?

__________________
Gun control is giving criminals guns and taken guns away from law abiding citizens.