opinion
The Torah is Unequivocally
Pro-life BY RABBI YAAKOV MENKEN
dem10 / E+
A great deal of misinformation has been shared
regarding abortion, much of it coming, of
course, in the wake of a leaked draft from the
Supreme Court suggesting it may soon overturn
Roe v. Wade.

But everything we have heard about supposed
wholesale bans, or lack of concern for the life of
the mother, pales in comparison to both the quan-
tity and severity of obviously wrong pronounce-
ments from those claiming a Jewish perspective.

One notable organization summed up a common
position by stating, “Judaism permits abortion.

Full stop.” Few things have been said about
Judaism by purported adherents that are more
clearly untrue.

The Jewish Bible’s position on life is unambigu-
ous — and emphatically “pro-life.” The Torah iden-
tifi es human life as a soul placed (breathed) within
a body by G-d Himself [Gen. 2:7]. Throughout his-
tory, Judaism has opposed murder, child sacrifi ce
and, with only modest exceptions, abortion. It is
due to the Torah’s infl uence that civilized Western
society does not accept infanticide as a method
of family planning, or regard throwing dissidents
to the lions as entertainment.

One who claims that fetal life is not precious
to Judaism must not have read the Torah or
Prophets, or studied our Oral Law. Rebecca is
told not only that she is carrying twins, but that
they have distinct natures and characters that
explain their behavior in utero [Gen. 25:23].

Jeremiah is told that “Before I placed you in the
womb I knew you, before you left the uterus I
sanctifi ed you, I appointed you a prophet to the
nations” [Jer. 1:5].

And in the Mishnah [Ohalos 7:6] we are taught
that the reason one must save a mother even at
the expense of her child is “because her life pre-
cedes his life.” Some fl agrantly misrepresent this
as saying that the fetus is not yet considered alive,
but the text itself explicitly says otherwise.

Jewish law also demands that the Sabbath be
violated in order to save a fetal life. Given that
lifesaving activity is the only situation in which
Sabbath restrictions are set aside, were a fetus
not considered alive this would be prohibited, not
required. Advocates must confront the truth: According to
Judaism, abortion, entailing a loss of human life, is
an unmitigated tragedy. Even the most permissive
opinions reserve abortion for extreme situations that
no woman should ever experience. The idea that
abortion should be regarded as simply a “choice,”
or a routine health care decision when the mother’s
health is not abnormally threatened by carrying the
child to term, is anathema to our beliefs.

This also, interestingly enough, coincides with
all that the medical community has learned about
fetal life since 1973. Today we know, for example,
that newborn babies respond not only to their
mothers’ heartbeats, but to the sound of their
parents’ voices. While in utero, babies suck their
thumbs for comfort, and even learn music. It is
simply nonsensical to argue that a thinking, listen-
ing baby is not alive.

Those Jews who ignore our ritual laws, eating
pork and treating Saturday like a normal day,
rarely insist that the relevant laws were misread
or misunderstood. They simply admit they do not
follow these laws. But recognizing the Torah’s
authority over moral judgments, those wishing
to behave in contravention of its ethical precepts
often devise tendentious readings to turn prohib-
ited acts into “Jewish values.”
Much as we can sympathize with the psycho-
logical need behind such eff orts, we cannot
minimize the inestimable value the Torah places
upon all human life, including that of those as yet
unborn. JE
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of
the Coalition for Jewish Values.

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