Flexibility

The Halacha, then, does not consider foeticide as homicide although it considers it a grave, moral transgression against potential life. There can be extenuating factors which permit abortion, which is not the case with homicide (eg if a man is ordered to kill another, he may not obey). In the definitions of these circumstances, opinions vary from only danger to the mother's life to the more lenient consideration of the mother's feelings, even if unrelated to the liklihood of her death.

From the brief examination of Judaic legal material it becomes apparent that the attitude of the rabbis towards the question of abortion was much more flexible, and as such, more complex than one associates with modern-day orthodoxy, either Jewish or Christian. While not all the rabbis of the Middle Ages were necessarily liberal, the legal precedent for abortion already existed in the Bible and the Mishna.

Consequently, rather than taking a rigid uncompromising position Judaism presents a whole spectrum of views on abortion, ranging from ultra-conservative to ultra-liberal. However within Judaic law we find a continuous "liberal" stand which provides the basis for a contemporary position that favours abortion.

Dianne Davis