RELIGION DOES NOT SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE ON THE ISSUE OF ABORTION

I get rankled – I believe justifiably – anytime some defender-of-the-faith blusters that all religious heritages stand united in their assertion that abortion is murder, plain and simple. If you read no further, please do not tune out until I have made these points:

First, I have yet to encounter a religion anywhere that does not agree that abortion – particularly abortion on demand – has the most dire moral implication and that decisions regarding the termination of pregnancy must be pondered with life-and-death trepidation.

Second, let it not be said that the demurral that follows is the whining of an “uppity Jew” who does not want anyone else to speak for him, anytime, anywhere. Something far more critical is at stake here. You see, these damning God-versus-antichrist pronouncements of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters have the effect of de-legitimizing an alternative approach to abortion that is built on equally sound Biblical and Rabbinic tradition. Christians should find the approach significant because it is undoubtedly the very exegesis that Jesus heard from his mentors in First Century Judea.

Exodus 21:22 and similar Biblical passages lead Jewish tradition to conclude, “a fetus, until its head egresses from the birth canal, is an appendage of its mother.” That is, to injure or destroy a fetus has the same gravity as maiming or excising an arm, leg, or eye. It may be done only to achieve some clearly higher purpose – to save a life, or in self-defense, for example. When done in malice or as a caprice, it is a tort, a transgression subject to criminal and civil prosecution. But it is not murder, murder defined as willfully taking the life of an autonomously viable being. (Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 58a; Sanhedrin 72a)

Many early and Medieval Jewish jurists are quick to note, however, that a fetus is still fundamentally different from an arm or leg, because it represents “potential life.” Thus, to justify terminating a pregnancy, the fetus must take on the status of an “aggressor” against the mother’s life and the abortion an act of self-defense.

At the same time, a more permissive early and Medieval Jewish tradition – no less legitimate, documented, or sacred – runs parallel to the “aggressor” paradigm. It places heavier emphasis on “the mother’s pain,” even going so far as to say, “her pain is to be considered first.” (Maimonides, Yad, Ishut, 21:11) What kind of pain? Severe mental anguish? Suicidal tendencies? Hysteria? Rape? Incest? Adultery? Poverty? Abandonment?

Rabbis and jurists of ensuing generations have pondered each of these scenarios and have come to a variety of permissive and prohibitive conclusions, all based on a meticulous case-by-case review of circumstances surrounding each incident in question. They consciously resisted the urge – and the egotism – to set sweeping precedent through their decisions. Instead, they insisted that the insight, sensitivity, and compassion required of such a torturous decision could be attained only by examining factors that defy broad generalization, citing the Talmudic adage, “The judge can rule only on the evidence before his eyes.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 6b)

The implication for today’s blood-bathed controversy is compelling: Abortion is a choice that must be pondered ethically, compassionately, soberly by a loving, caring circle that includes mother, father, the closest of family and friends, and ones minister, rabbi, priest, imam, guru. God’s stake in the creation of this potential being must be an issue of overarching consideration. But, since honorable, venerated religious traditions themselves respectfully disagree on this passionate issue, we dare not impose our ethos on others and certainly not intimate that those who demur are Satan’s henchmen.

To infer that all religions speak with one voice on the issue of abortion is at best factually incorrect. At worst, it denigrates the legitimacy of a heritage that has well earned its place as an equal partner in human destiny, a heritage to which Jesus himself proudly subscribed.