Re: Abortion in halacha -David

Posted and mailed because this group has a lot of traffic, it's been
almost 5 days, and you might not see this otherwise.

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 05:50:05 +0000 (UTC), "DoD"
<danskisanjar@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Dvora L" <Dvora1988@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:16288-47828C28-3919@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Jan 7, 12:59 pm, Dvora1...@xxxxxxxxx (Dvora L) wrote:
David --- I did not understand your answer to me ???
#######

It was just a general comment. I put it in response to your message
because I liked your sentiment.
David
######
THANK YOU DAVID - ALTHOUGH I STILL DID NOT UNDERSTAND -

WOULD YOU WISH TO EXPLAIN HOW YOU FEEL --- WHAT THE TRADITIONAL O VIEW
IS ?
-----------------------

Well, I can't explain the nuances because I don't have a yeshiva education,
but from what I have read so-far, most of the articles tend to say, in
summary, that abortion should be between the woman, her doctor and possibly
her rabbi....

I don't know how everyone missed this. The only way the rabbi would
not be involved is everyone already knew what the rabbi was going to
say. That's only in really clear-cut extreme cases, such as if the
woman is going to die if she doesn't get an abortion, she's not only
MAY get an abortion, she's obliged to get an abortion. But even if
the doctors all agreed she was going to die without it, I think if
there were time, many/most observant Jews would check with their rabbi
if not about permissability, about whether there was some way to
minimize the harm done.

I don't think even partially delivered babies are an exception to
this, because in a such a case, I don't think the risk that the woman
faces is death.

There are other situations that are not as clear, and as the ability
to keep a woman from dying gets greater, I'll bet these other
situations make up a greater percentage. For example, I don't think
this case is discussed, but I glean that there are times when a
problem delivery will likely lead to a dead baby anyhow, as well as
greatly harming the woman's chance to have children in the future. I
think the so-called Partial Birth Abortion is meant to prevent the
physical damage to the woman, and the percentage of time the fetus
will die anyhow, I don't know. Like many issues in American life,
this one is never fully discussed. (It's sort of like the primary
elections, where most of the news is about the process and very little
about the issues.

Some rabbis have held that if the woman is distraught by her pregnancy
such that her suicide is a real possibility, that is grounds for an
abortion. I don't know if other rabbis have held otherwise, or on
what grounds, or if they just haven't been presented with a case like
that yet. I don't know because I don't know much.

I get the idea that sometimes it could be mandatory if the
womans life is in jepordy,

Yes, that's true.

but that opens up a whole can of worms in my
head,

Like what? The only one seems to be, How much jeopardy is her life
in? Are the chances of dying 1% or 40%?

because I try to think of a bunch of scenarios to cover different
things. Then again, as far as I understand martyrdom is a no-no in Judaism,
so that can of worms might not be so large.

I don't think this would be martyrdom, regardless of the details.
Martyrdom I believe requires another person trying to force you to
violate halacha, threatening to kill you.

(For non-Jews too, I think the English def of marytrdom requires
another person trying to force the possible martyr to do something.
Any extended meaning of the word martyr seems to me to be metaphoric,
or "as if he's a martyr".)

Even if we assume what I think would be impossible, that she has a
husband insisting that she have the baby even when the doctor says she
is likely to die, if she went ahead, had the baby, and died, I don't
think that would be martyrdom because the halacha would have been to
have the abortion. She would have been dying because of a third
party, but not because of halacha. I guess you could say "She was a
martyr to her husband's wishes", but that wouldn't be something I
would say.

If the doctor didn't think she would die, so she didn't have the
abortion and later found out the doctor was wrong and she did die,
well that could happen to anyone, and is based on a medical mistake,
so I don't think that would be martyrdom either.

The halacha regarding martyrdom have several situations, and depend
among other things on whether something is happening in front of
others or not. Under certain circumstances, which i can't describe
exactly, because my memory isn't so good, but roughly are when some
power is on a campaign to destroy Judaism, a Jew has to die rather
than wear shoelaces of a differenct color than he normally does.

I am still trying to pinpoint the whole soul thingie, but what I have read
sofar, includes kabbalah, which I understand that someone needs far more
education than I have to delve into it and understand it.

I'm sure. More education than I have too. For you and me, I think it
is going to be confusing and not a valuable way to spend time, or
worse.

But so far the
gist that I get is that the soul is comprised of three different parts, but

Aish.com does say that. The nefesh, ruach, and neshama.
www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/The_Soul.asp

But the sources I have heard, until tonight, include the chaya and the
yechida.

I still can't pinpoint when a fetus/human acquires the soul, although I

While that might be the defining factor for some religions, I don't
think it is for Judaism. Judaism tends to be more concerned with nuts
and bolts, with measurable factors. But I could be very wrong on this
part. I'm counting survivabilty of the mother as a nut or bolt.

I guess it might be that the statement that the first 40 days the
[zygote?] is like water, is similar to a statement that it doesn't
have a soul, but iirc my rabbi didn't approve of aborting 35 day
zygotes for trivial reasons either. So even if that meant it didn't
have a soul at 35, that wouldn't mean that you can do anything you
want with it. There is 10000 times more that I don't know than that I
do, so maybe someone could find a relationship between the soul and
the permissability of abortion.


think that according to kabbalah that one part of the soul comes later and
develops over time. I can't figure out when the first two are acquired.

David


.

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