Q&A - Is Abortion Permissible? Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

this is uh the Jewish approach towards abortion um you know it's interesting that in the secular world we divide people into people who are called pro-choice who believe that every woman has the absolute right to abort at least up to a certain age and pro-life that says abortion is murder the Catholic Church's position is aborting a fetus at after conception is murder mamish now what is the Jewish p uh the Jewish perspective so in reality it's kind of in between uh Judaism absolutely prohibits abortion unless you have a very very strong reason now what is the strong reason many many shos some say only if the mother's life is in danger others say for sickness there may be there may be reasons but abortion is user but what's interesting is abortion does not seem to be R it does not seem to be murder and the proof of that is if I kill a human being I'm Mis I could be executed by a Baston abortion is not a capital crime right one who kills a fetus even if they were given warning and everything else is not executed by a Baston under the Noah laws for ay it is a capital crime not for a jail so the question becomes how do you understand there Vada is an isue of abortion no please do not misunder understand me at all we have to be 100% borrower there's an iser of abortion but how do you understand the iser of abortion if you're not for killing the Fus I'm going to give you a number of possibilities that you see in the possibility number one is which seems not to be what theam LO says it is murder but it's a g Sak you don't get capital punishment for it in other words it's non capital punishment murder but in terms of the the is it is that's one view that's very very there is another view that it's not but it is the destruction of a potential life in other words is the destruction of Life abortion is not murder because the fetus is not an actual autonomous life but it's the frustration of potential and the Yer says it is similar to the wasting of seed right the wasting of seed is also not murder but it's destroying a potentiality and therefore the actually says abortion is there is a third view that says abortion is simply right you're not allowed to wound yourself you're not allowed to cut cut off your hand or whatever it would be abortion isala now you understand that that would actually be very makeal if the woman has any health reason at all right and there's a fourth which is a one line in to that says abortion May might only be in but there is one that abortion so we we have a whole range of possibilities either it's murder without capital punishment or it's an is or we have things in between or or or so uh the point is that Judaism is not pro-choice that's the most we can say so we don't accept necessarily necessarily the position of the Catholic church that it is murder but we also don't accept uh the unlimited right to have an abortion for whatever it is now I'm going to mention something else again this may open me up to hate mail and uh that is and I'm just throwing this out I'm not I'm not giving you my belief on it at all and that is one might make the interesting argument that even though I as a religious Jew believe abortion is generally going to be user I might not necessarily want there to be restrictive abortion laws now you know for many many years in the United States we had this case Row versus Wade which more or less legitimated abortions at almost all stages until the very end of the pregnancy uh but just uh was it two years ago whatever it is the Trump Supreme Court very surprisingly actually reversed Row versus Wade and now what that means is every state is free to prohibit or restrict abortions now some liberal states are not going to do it anyway right California will keep its abortion law New York will keep its abortion law in spite of Orthodox Jews um Massachusetts will certainly keep its abortion laws but in more conservative Southern States like Texas Florida all of these states they are making abortion restrictions so here's the question I'm a religious Jew I live in Texas so when there was R versus Wade abortion was mucher R versus Wade is BTO and now we have a chance to Asser abortion should I as a religious Jew be in favor of the secular government offering abortions or maybe I should say no so let me explain the two ideas one Sora is well listen if abortion is something that's forbidden even for Gentiles even for Gentiles under the seven laws of Noah when the government is moving towards greater compliance with the noahide laws that's a good thing so I should push for restrictive abortion laws because that is the ratson Hashem not just for Jews that's the ratm that I think is the p and I think most people would say it like that but there's another s like this let's imagine Texas passes a law I'm just making it up that says abortion is only permitted if the mother's life is in danger so I look at that law I say hey that's good that's what H says but wait a second who decides if the mother's life is in danger is it going to be the rav or is it going to be the state's attorney and whatever County in Texas meaning once you make it a secular law the determination of PES is going to be up to a secular Authority who might disagree with the Pak of AR so in a sense if you think about it when the state allows abortion that's actually better for orthodox Jews because then Orthodox Jews simply have to talk to their posac and their posac will say yes or no and there'll be no interference so you get into a funny thing in terms of society as a whole a a restrictive abortion law is better for society as a whole because it cuts down abortions but for me as a religious Jew I do better with a pro-choice law than I do with a pro-life law because a pro-choice maximizes my ability to follow Hal with no interference so do I do what's better for the from Jew or what's better for society as a whole you see this is a paradox a from Jew as a from Jew does better with pro-choice because pro-choice just simply says I can make my decisions without government interference however for society that's a bad thing for my perspective because that allows them to violate hakas much more than what other the case so I'm not uh again I'm not taking any position on this it's just something you think about that it's fascinating that you can be absolutely against abortion and not necessarily in favor of restrictive abortion l