Abortion in Jewish and Christian views

I have a friend in the US whom I've known for 50 years plus. He wrote to me this week asking about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade. He wondered if the religious views of the Court might not have had something to do with the ruling. 7 Christians vs 2 Jews.

Here are some of my answers to him:

First, is the Jewish view on abortion. There is NO agreement among Jewish people on the subject of abortion. 

For instance, Chabad (representing the ultra-Orthodox) says this:

The sages of the Talmud point out that the phrase in Genesis “one who sheds the blood of man through man” is more accurately translated as “one who sheds the blood of man within man.” Based on this, Rabbi Ishmael said that under ordinary circumstances the killing of a fetus is considered a capital offence for all descendants of Noah, i.e., humankind.”

But their website adds what they think is somewhat contradictory evidence, but really says it only in a different angle. 

This is another quote from Torah (Exodus): “Should men quarrel and hit a pregnant woman, and she miscarried but there is no fatality, he shall surely be punished when the woman’s husband makes demands of him, and he shall give [restitution] according to the judges’ [orders]. 

Since the Torah obligates only monetary compensation but no capital punishment, the Torah seemingly views the fetus as property, not as human life. There are various ways of reconciling these verses. All agree, however, that under ordinary circumstances abortion is prohibited.”

One issue is “full term” babies. According to most Jewish sources, if they are able to reach full term, the unborn then become living beings. If they don’t reach full term, then they must live a full 30 days outside the womb before they are a real person. 

The Talmud states in part that if the “greater part was already born, one may not touch it, for one may not set aside one person’s life for that of another.” So, the act of birth changes the status of the unborn from a nonperson to a person (Hebrew word: nefesh). Killing the newborn after this point would be infanticide. No one thinks this is acceptable. The question is then, what about before that actual birth? Many Talmudic sources and commentators on the Talmud substitute the word “head” for “greater part.” Others maintain the “greater part” meaning the trunk/ torso. So, Dave, that’s where I’m guessing you learned about the ‘head’ or ‘crown’ you mention. 

Famous rabbis and commentators like Maimonides and Joseph Caro also considered the viewing of the head to indicate birth. They both also said that by rabbinic decree, even if only one limb of the unborn came out and then retracted, childbirth is considered to have taken place.

Not only is the precise time of the birth significant in determining whether aborting the fetus is permissible to save the mother’s life, but the viability of the unborn must also be taken into account. The newborn child is not considered fully viable until it has survived thirty days following birth, as is stated in both Torah and in the Talmud:

“Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel said: Any human being who lives 30 days is not a nephel [abortus] because it is stated: ‘And those that are to be redeemed of them from a month-old shalt thou redeem (Numbers 18.16) since prior to thirty days it is not certain that he will survive.”

 

Further support for the necessity of a 30‑day postpartum viability period for adjudicating various Jewish legal matters pertaining to the newborn also comes from Maimonides, who said,

“Whether one kills an adult or a day‑old child, a male or a female, he must be put to death if he kills deliberately…provided that the child is born after a full‑term pregnancy. But, if it is born before the end of nine months, it is regarded as an abortion until it has lived for thirty days, and if one kills it during these thirty days, one is not put to death on its account.

Thus, although the newborn infant reaches the status of a person or nefesh, which it didn’t have prior to birth, it still does not enjoy all the legal rights of an adult until it has survived for thirty days postpartum. The death penalty is not imposed if one kills such a child before it has established its viability, but killing it is certainly prohibited because “one may not set aside one person’s life for that of another.”

Taken from Biomedical Ethics and Jewish Law, published by KTAV.

All that to say that most traditional Jewish views on birth indicate that the unborn is not really a fully-functioning human until some part of the unborn fetus is viewable (arm, leg, crown), and thus even up to a 9^th-month abortion would be legal. 

 

What about Christian views? if only life were so simple. There are some Christians whose whole raison d'être seems to Include fighting for the rights of the unborn. There are some Christians who have had abortions and there are tons of middle-of-the-pack others. There is no one size fits all theology of abortion/ murder philosophy. The Bible shows God knowing Jeremiah the prophet in the womb (before he was born) and John the Baptist actually filled with the Spirit while in the womb of Elizabeth his mother. Those unborn future Jewish leaders are representative, they say, of all the unborn whose souls have formed already in utero. 

 

I guess the 7 vs 2 of the SCOTUS may well have religious overtones, and certainly that’s one of the big arguments about the Trump appointees, and I hope I’ve helped fill in some thoughts as you continue that processing. Thanks again for asking. 

Donald Trump: The first 3rd party winner

Let me first join in with both Hillary and Donald in their defeat/victory speeches on Election Night/ Day and wish the disunity would stop. Americans need to get beyond the hatred and strife which characterized the last 18 months of the circus of the elections. That is a base of reality which I will again mention at the end of this blog.

Over the course of months I watched, albeit from afar, the horse race which was the US elections this year. It was easy to get some updates almost hourly, certainly daily, on the big race for president. Hundreds of other contests were decided on Tuesday this week, of course, including local propositions and senators and congress people, but all eyes seemed to be on the two main candidates, determined by the longer-than-ever primary season and the rubber stamping national conventions. And by now, informed people know that Donald J Trump is the president-elect. He will assume command on 20 January as is the national custom at his inauguration.

I wrote the other day about the Bradley effect and how the pollsters got it so wrong, but today my thoughts go to the idea of a third party. So many of my contacts in the US (I've lived in Australia for 18 years) were polarized in support of, or fierce opposition to, either of the major candidates, Secretary Clinton or Mr Trump. I found a few, rare individuals who were supportive of a candidate and who were not strident. So much hostility; so little grace.

To be sure, there were those undecideds who seriously were stuck between what many called the two evils. Some said, "Better the devil we know than the devil we don't know." Some couldn't get beyond Benghazi or tens of thousands of chattering emails. Some could not accede to a man who guaranteed his genitals were of significant size and who demeaned others like a schoolyard bully. Back and forth the mudslinging continued. It was genuinely ugly and for me as an American in Australia (or wherever I traveled) and so embarrassing. But wait, let's go back a bit.

Some of my strident friends couldn't support Hillary because she was pro-abortion, even to the end of a pregnancy, as she said, if the life of the mother were at risk. They didn't voice the same concern when Donald said, “I'm pro-life, but with the caveats. It's-- Life of the mother (very important), incest and rape,” Trump said. Donald also said, ‘You have bad researchers’: when Bill O’Reilly questioned him on Planned Parenthood TheBlaze - Sep 9, 2015. In 1999, Trump stated to the Associated Press, “I believe it (abortion) is a personal decision that should be left to the women and their doctors.” OK, so he has changed his mind since then. People do that. And I'm glad he did, but I wonder, is he as dyed in the wool Republican as some think?

Read this report this week from Business Report on Donald and women's health issues.

The Donald promised to release his tax returns like every candidate of modern times. He didn't. He did say, "In terms of taxes, “I know people making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually no taxes, and I think it's unfair.” But we don't know about his own record.

OK, as a businessman who has declared bankruptcy any number of times, do we want him to run the largest economy in the world? Too late now to ask that question, but some were thinking that.

His sexual exploits were another embarrassing theme throughout the final days. Women lined up to declare their being assaulted by him; video tapes from years ago revealed a person who was not the picture the Republicans would want, and especially for the evangelical Christians who didn't share those values. Yet 82% of evangelicals voted for him. Values aside, they voted party.

Many voted for him because they liked the platform of the Republican party which included a recognition of Christianity and prayer in school, an overturning of Roe v Wade, a lowering of corporate tax threshholds, etc. The platform called for a recognition of the rights of the unborn under the 14th Amendment. The platform calls for Keystone to be finished. You get it, it's a comprehensive exercise of classic conservative values and such.

I'm saying all this to say that I think Donald used the Republican party as his own and would have gladly renamed a new one the Trump Party if he needed to leave. I think Donald well represents what would have been a third-party if Cruz or Rubio, or any of the other 16 candidates for the nomination of the Republican party had won. I worry that Donald is the George Wallace of our day. Mind you, I acknowledge that he won and that he is to be our 45th president. I get that. And I support our process of elections and will pray for him to be good at being our next president.

Still I aver that he's the consummate third-party candidate. Forget Tea Party or Ross Perot, forget how Perot knocked Clinton into the White House. I may be wrong, but I think Donald J Trump is the real 3rd-party person of this election. He is as Republican today as he can be, but what will he be tomorrow? His erratic personality, and self-importance, and declaration that he could stand in the middle of Times Square with a gun and shoot someone and get away with it-- it's so non-Republican. His unwillingness throughout the primaries to listen to his handlers/ advisors was clearly displayed. People loved that he was non-PC. In fact he was anti-PC. He was a loose cannon. He could say to anyone at anytime that they were less, they were of little importance, they were insignificant. He propped himself up by knocking others down. Whether it was Ted Cruz or Ari Fleischer, Megyn Kelly or John McCain, Rand Paul, or anyone who challenged him. That's not Republican; that's not even American. That's self-consumed and classic misanthropic behaviour. I express my worry. It is not disdain; it is not disapproval of the process. It is worry and anxiety about the person.

I think people voted the party, even though the party had been coopted by the classic outsider. He boasted of his outside-ness. He is the first president-elect never to have held a governmental or military position. Yet, he is as sharp a politician as there is.

And thus I will pray. And hope. And challenge Americans to get beyond the hatred and strife which characterized the last 18 months and join together to make the world a better place with better people performing better acts. And that prayer should not be for a bullet to strike Mr Trump. It should be as the apostle Paul wrote to his mate Timothy what should be a wonderful guide for us in these days of putting aside the hostility, "I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Messiah Yeshua, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension." (1 Timothy 2.1-8)

Blood everywhere...(ANZAC, Democrats,

An Australian Facebook friend wrote about the Spirit of the ANZACs. "Next year marks the 100 year anniversary of the Australian Light Horsemen freeing Beersheba from the Islamic Caliphate (Ottoman Empire). If Australia will continue to support the descendents of Israel, then she will continue to be blessed. However if Australia turns her back on Israel, by calling for Israel to give more land for peace, then not only will she be trampling under foot the blood of the ANZAC soldiers, denying their victories, and returing the land to the ones they liberated it from, but she will also find herself fighting against the living G-d!"

I value the work of the ANZACs at Gallipoli, Turkey, and in the entire campaign in what was then labelled Palestine at the end of World War I. The history is clearly unpacked in this article from AWM .
The simplest description is "The battle of Beersheba took place on 31 October 1917 as part of the wider British offensive collectively known as the third Battle of Gaza. The final phase of this all day battle was the famous mounted charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade. Commencing at dusk, members of the brigade stormed through the Turkish defences and seized the strategic town of Beersheba. The capture of Beersheba enabled British Empire forces to break the Ottoman line near Gaza on 7 November and advance into Palestine."

That anniversary in 16 months will be noteworthy for the Aussies, the Brits, maybe even for the world. So the question is begged with which I began. What does the phrase, "trample under foot the blood of the ANZAC soldiers" mean?

Actually the Bible uses a similar sounding phrase nine times. Four in the Older Testament and five in the Newer Testament portion. Three are direct quotes from Yeshua. Only once does the word 'foot' actually appear, and seems unnecessary. Trampling seems to imply 'under foot' as it is a visual word.

After the recent Democratic National Convention, having been blurry-eyed from watching much of both conventions, I posted on FB and Twitter about some of my takeaways. "My takeaways from the ‪#‎DNC‬: Black preachers get the crowd moving. Four days is too long for a pep rally. Videos of Trump's poor rhetoric were excellent. Hoping for Hillary Clinton to include victims of ‪#‎abortion‬ in her Village. ‪#‎Im‬(almost)withher. God was mentioned much more than at ‪#‎RNC‬. Balloons every night would make things more fun. Ended in prayer--that's good. Michelle and Barack are amazing orators." I enjoyed some of the speeches and routines. I found neither convention compelling, but I saw more clearly how I should be voting in 100 days. When I mentioned anything good about Hillary, almost immediately I received more than a fair share of pro-Trump, name-calling of the Dem's candidate. If I mentioned anything positive about the Repubs many took me to task.

That whole posturing and especially the quoting of any evidence came almost exclusively from Fox News or MSNBC. I was gobsmacked. It's almost as if whole chunks of society are 'mediated' by the ultra-right or ultra-left. People aren't thinkers anymore, we are merely quoters. And bad quoters at that.

This excursus into the topic of the conventions allows me to discuss many of the one-issue people from the right. I've been told and retold, scolded and re-scolded about Hillary. Don't I know anything? They tell me that she's an anti-Israel, left-wing, liar and flip flopper who is in bed with Wall Street and a baby killer. Yes, one or two have even told me she is a witch, a practicing witch who believes in Molech and has sacrificed children to the ancient god of fire.
One wrote, "If we can reason away murdering our unborn children and put anything above that we are so being absorbed and digested by society our culture to a point that we don't even see it. We need prayers." One cited Mother Teresa, " It is a poverty that a child must die so that we may live as we wish. Mother Teresa"

The business of abortion in the US which has seen over 58 million children removed from life since 1973 is huge. Planned Parenthood had a very grand welcome by Hillary and the Democrats and is well entrenched in their platform. The abortion mill well represents the phrases trampled under foot and subsumed by the blood of the infants-to-be.

The Bible records this in the Book of Hebrews: "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" This phrase of 'trampled under foot' seems to be a synonym for disregarded. And it's linked with a blood covenant reference. That is clearer in the book of Ezekiel.
I quote this passage which seems to depict abortion with no apology:
“As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born. When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ (Chapter 16.4-6)

God hates the shedding of innocent blood.
God hates the taking of a human life, especially one which has no voice to self-defend.
God wants us all to know Him personally, to regard Him with honour and to receive the Spirit of Grace.

What will you do with Yeshua? Please, I urge you, receive His love and care. His blood was spilled for you; He died for you taking on Himself your sins and mine. Any and every sin. And He longs to be in relationship with you. Don't disregard this blog. Don't disregard His voice. Today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your heart. (Psalm 95, Hebrews 3, Hebrews 4) And write to let me know your choice. Thanks for listening.