Hey, I know we have a decent population of Jews here, and at least some are practicing - what do y’all do about abortion, religiously? You still have the Trial of Bitter Water from Numbers in the Torah, correct? How is that viewed in Judaism? (because anti-choice Christians ignore it.)
I know Jews tend to have a lot of “… unless you really have to for survival”, e.g. regarding working on the Sabbath, so I assume you also allow abortion for the life of the mother. But otherwise?
Reform Judiasm is extremely pro choice.
We lobby actively for reproductive rights
No certainty even of any soul existing.
Having a Court assume the existence of souls, then concluding anything based on it, is completely idiotic and Alabaman, but I repeat myself.
About the Orthodox Jewish POV:
There are various opinions by stage of pregnancy. The first 40 days vs the first trimester vs the second vs viability vs before the head emerges vs after. Abortion is termed worse and worse as time goes on in the pregnancy. It may still be wrong in the first trimester though. It’s probably not considered murder by anyone until the fetus is viable. And in the first 40 days it may not even be a sin.
Different Talmudic scholars have different opinions and they represent various communities of very religious Jews. One, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, had a strict view, that abortion is only permissible in cases where the mother’s life is in physical danger. (I don’t believe trimester is a consideration in this case.) Another, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, had a more permissive view, that abortions are permitted even in the 2nd trimester if the fetus has Tay Sachs. I am not sure about the rationale, but it was probably out of concern for the mother’s mental health to give birth to a baby with such a terrible, uncurable, terminal disease. So basically, a generalization of the health of the mother. Or, another case would be a deformity that causes the fetus to suffer, in which case abortion would be allowed in the first trimester.
Both of the rabbis named above have many followers today.
I don’t think that highly religious Jews would consider abortion allowed for a reason dissimilar to the above. Whether or not it’s considered murder, it’s still probably considered a sin, unless something like the above applies.
The prime example in the Old Testament, other than the one you point out, is that if 2 men are in a fight and a pregnant woman gets injured, killing her baby, that is not murder.
Jews consider saving someone’s life to outweigh nearly anything else in the religion, so yes, if someone’s physical life is involved, then that would usually be the only consideration. There are 3 cardinal sins that are not outweighed, one of which is murder of another person. I think the other 2 are adultery and idolworship, but not sure.
You say anti-choice Christians ignore this passage about a man compelling a woman to miscarry if she has been unfaithful. Are you talking about Christians opposed to a man’s choice? I’m not sure why Christians opposed to a woman’s choice would ignore a passage about compelling a woman regarding the status of their fetus.
I meant: Christians who are opposed to the choice to have an abortion ignore the Trial of Bitter Water in the book of Numbers. This was an abortion performed under the guidance of the clergy, and I’ve never heard a Christian explain why the Jews (who were the precursors to Christians in this tradition) had this process but it is not okay for Christians.
@Lily Thanks for all the detail! I realized my question might’ve sounded flippant, but you took it seriously and it was intended seriously.
From a biblical perspective, the pauline prohibition on pharmakeia is considered to be an injunction against abortion potions among others.
Is this based on Galatians 5:19-21?
I plan to look at this more on lunch or something, but this is the first bite I’ve ever had on the topic and I’m earnestly interested. I see that phamakeia is most directly like “witchcraft” or “sorcery” but also relates to medicines and poisons and such. It’s my first time encountering the word.
Yes, that’s the citation.
Welcome to Talibama y’all
Duh. Because Jews aren’t Christians, and Christians are the true believers of God.
Not entirely clear what Nikki Haley’s stance is on the Alabama decision?
Kamala Harris is much clearer on her view:
One can look at the “Council in Jeruselem” as described in Acts chapter 15 for a lot of the support of why OT laws may not be applicable to Christians.
Specifically, the summary of the decision as found in verses 28 and 29:
Note: the original issue that was brought to the “Council” centered around the “requirement” for males to be circumcised in order to be “true followers of Jesus.” Given the above conclusion, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the whole of Jewish law was taken into consideration in the discussion.
Further, I think that this section isn’t supporting that Christians should NOT be subject to following the 10 Commandments (however you want to enumerate that list) as those commandments describe what our relationships with God and with others should be–and there are a lot of other passages in the NT that reinforce those ideals.
This is veering a little bit from the political to the religious. I agree that modern-day Christians are considered not beholden to OT restrictions - but the opposite way, that Christians have restrictions on things permissible to Jews - is less commonly argued. In this case with abortion/pharmakeia, it appears to me as a restriction on a previously allowable procedure that was administered by the clergy.
Ultimately, please understand I’m not trying to argue “Christians should be a-okay with abortion”. It really doesn’t matter to me what they feel, as long as they don’t inject religion into government. However the above conversation about pharmakeia in Galatians is literally the 1 time somebody’s addressed my question on the Trial of Bitter Water. I haven’t read much more about it. While it seems to me to be a stretch, I recognize that sometimes fundamentals of theology are drawn from short passages.
Also, if this did turn into a primarily theological discussion I’d want to split it to a new thread - that said, I’m no scholar.
I don’t know the history of the christian prohibition against abortion.
I do know that a roman baby did not gain any value until accepted by the father. otherwise they could be left out to die.
more generally, in the ancient world, moral worth came, to some degree, from being a member of a society. so exile could be worse than death.
on the other hand, i think there was always recognized to be a “quickening”, before which abortion was a sin but not murder.
i think this is the emphasis on the value of a person independent of society is some of the value of being suspicious of some reproductive related technology:
ironically, as i understand it, roe is what kept the state away from the body through privacy. if the state can keep a woman from getting an abortion, why can’t it make a person donate a kidney, for example.
Religious interpretation is very important in a theocracy.
the requirement was not a popular recruiting strategy among non-jews i suppose. crowd control and recruiting - how much do those two things drive the rules in general?
I take your posts as seeking clarification on the reasons (justifications?) for different groups stances. And as a moderator, I appreciate the approach you’ve taken in this thread. 
As for the quoted question, I think one should also take care to look at what’s being claimed with support from theological sources. In my case, the answer to your question here is that the permissiveness of the abortion listed in the OT is a consequence for some other action (e.g., infidelity) and not that the procedure was warranted (or administered) because of a desire of the mother.
So I don’t quite see this as a “permissible by Jew that was changed by Christian ethics” situation.
The abortion was done under the suspicion that the woman was unfaithful, yes.
However, if we viewed this under the modern most prevalent Christian interpretation of abortion, this means that we executed a human because a completely different human committed a sin.
Even as a pro-choice person, I don’t think that a fetus deserves to be terminated because the mother did something socially undesirable.
I’m putting myself in another’s shoes now, but many Christians are anti-choice. I’m pretty certain that none of that cohort of Christians would say “Right to life, unless the mother may have been unfaithful, in which case if the father wants an abortion it is completely fine.”
In that sense, I see this abortion as situationally allowable under Jewish law at the time of the Book of Numbers (beyond merely for the life of the mother), and under the anti-choice interpretation of Christianity it is no longer allowable.
Also, that whole OT story is not analogous to present time’s “Abortion is a right for all.”
It is more like, “Abortion is a right for the woman’s owner to make her have one.”
Which actually tracks with current GOP/Evangelists’ philosophy, even if they don’t say it out loud. (Meaning: they will make their womenfolk (wives, daughters, etc.) have abortions (out of state) when they demand it.)