Parshas Kedoshim
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
Ed. note: This article about abortion was originally written some years ago but is being sent out again due to its timely nature and important message -dz.
[Warning! The following is not for the faint of heart or the close-minded. If you have a hard time with opinions that differ from your own, then this article is probably not for you.]
You will be familiar with the words in the title of this article if you own a Blackberry as I do. Truth be told, every time I see those words I shudder, as they call to mind the ease with which a woman can get an abortion these days … press any key to abort!
Two things conspired to get me thinking about writing an article about abortion - even though it is such a contentious and emotionally laden topic that it is almost never worth even bringing it up - aside from the fact that I am running out of other things to write about.
The first and most obvious is the fact that the Torah portion [of Tazria] begins with a discussion about women and childbirth. The second is the following very disturbing news article that I read a while ago online:
Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals
The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found. Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning fetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.
Dennis Prager, in a brilliant article titled It's the Heart versus the Bible makes the following salient point:
The majority of people use their heart - stirred by their eyes - to determine what is right and wrong. A minority uses their mind and/or the Bible to make that determination. Pick almost any issue and these opposing ways of determining right and wrong become apparent.… [One example is] Abortion: How can you look at a sad 18-year-old who had unprotected sex and not be moved? What kind of heartless person is going to tell her she shouldn't have an abortion and should give birth? Those who cannot call any abortion immoral are moved by what they see - the forlorn woman who wants an abortion - not by the human fetus they do not see. That is why abortion rights groups are so opposed to showing photos of fetuses that have been aborted - such pictures might move the eye and the heart of viewers to judge the morality of many abortions differently.
I thought about Prager’s article when I read about the aborted babies that were being used as fuel to heat hospitals. You see, the heart of even the most ardent pro-abortionist is moved by this troubling news. How terrible and cruel can someone be to take little fetuses and throw them into an incinerator as if they were just some firewood lying around?!
Yet, if one thinks about it for a second – using the mind – then the argument tilts in the opposite direction. I mean, if you can justify having an abortion and “killing” an unborn fetus in the first place, then what’s really so bad about incinerating it after that as fuel? After all, the fetus is not an independent life; it is just a part of the woman’s body and can therefore be disposed of as necessary.
[In fact, one of the most common ways that hospitals dispose of an aborted fetus is by placing it in a medical waste red bin. From there the fetus is then incinerated. This is the way that most medical waste such as body parts and blood are disposed of. Aborted fetuses can also be flushed down a garbage disposal.]
The Torah asks us to use the mind versus the heart when determining right and wrong. In fact, the Sages teach that each and every one of us is supposed to be a melech, a king, over himself. The Hebrew word melech is spelled mem, lamed, chuf, and is an acronym for the three primary drives in a person, represented by the three main organs in the body – the moach (brain), the seat of the intellect; the leiv (heart), the seat of the emotions; and the kaveid (liver), the largest physical organ in the body and the seat of physical desires.
When judging moral issues and determining right and wrong, a Jew has to first use his moach,his mind, which, in turn, should guide his leiv, his heart, and his kaveid, his desires. If his moach is in the driver’s seat, he will judge things properly and will not be swayed by every emotion in his leiv, nor will he succumb to every passion in his kaveid – and he will truly be a ‘king” over himself.
That said, I would like to present an interesting “mind-based” argument against “unwarranted” abortion that I once read online at Am Echad Resources:
In Judaism, human life is sacrosanct, and so pikuach nefesh, the obligation to save a life in jeopardy, is considered a major value to uphold. This obligation applies to both an immediate threat and a less grave danger that has the potential of becoming serious.
Not only does pikuach nefesh and saving a life supersede Shabbos and other Biblical prohibitions, but even a ‘safek’ pikuach nefesh – a small possibility of saving a life - does as well. If fact, this holds true even in a situation where several doubts come together. For example, if a building collapses and we are unsure whether anyone was in there at the time and even assuming that someone is there, we are also unsure whether there are any survivors. Nevertheless, in such a case the Halachah (Jewish law) is that we employ any method to save those individuals (Shulchan Aruch 329:3; Mishnah Berurah 328:17).
Now we know that the issue of abortion has been hotly debated for well over 3000 years by some of the greatest minds in history. And it is incontrovertible fact that many world-renowned theologians, scholars and philosophers throughout the ages believed that “unnecessary” abortion is akin to murder.
So, the argument goes, if we value human life and will transgress virtually every law in the Torah just for the remote possibility of saving a life, then how can we allow abortion when there is at least a remote possibility that all those brilliant scholars and theologians are right and that it is indeed akin to murder? Shouldn’t all those ‘heavyweights’ create in our minds at least a slight doubt that taking the life of the unborn fetus is morally wrong?
The abortion issue is very different than other social issues like school-vouchers and inequality of the sexes etc. because the stakes are much higher – if we are wrong, we might be committing murder. So to the mind it makes sense to refrain from aborting fetuses unless absolutely necessary, just in case the other guys are right. And we should certainly not be deciding this major moral dilemma based on our hearts, regardless of what we feel about the subject.
[Ed. note: The Torah’s position on the abortion issue is quite complex, although, as a general rule, abortion is forbidden unless the life of the mother is endangered by the fetus. For more on this issue, see Dr. Daniel Eisenberg’s excellent article Abortion in Jewish Law on Aish.com -dz]
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=709