Abortion: Difference between revisions
From Halachipedia
Sendygross (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
# * According to Rabbi Issar Unterman, abortion is considered akin to murder אבזרייהו דרציחה. <ref> I.Y. Unterman, Noam VI (1963), 1-11 as cited in David Feldman, Birth Control In Jewish Law</ref> | # * According to Rabbi Issar Unterman, abortion is considered akin to murder אבזרייהו דרציחה. <ref> I.Y. Unterman, Noam VI (1963), 1-11 as cited in David Feldman, Birth Control In Jewish Law</ref> | ||
# * One possible prohibition could be that it is against the commandment of פרו ורבו. Part of the commandment is to allow every potential soul to come into being, and if one does abortion, they cannot do this. <ref> Yevamos 63b</ref> | # * One possible prohibition could be that it is against the commandment of פרו ורבו. Part of the commandment is to allow every potential soul to come into being, and if one does abortion, they cannot do this. <ref> Yevamos 63b</ref> | ||
# * Spilling the seed/Onanism. The fetus is more similar to the basic seed than to a human, so destroying the fetus would be like destroying the seed.<ref>Talmud Bavli: Niddah 13a; Chavos Yair, Siman 31</ref> | |||
# * Aborting the fetus is injuring the mother. (Chavalah) Exodus 21 says that if two men are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and there is no death, but the fetus is miscarried, then they have to pay a monetary payment. So the fetus is more a part of the mother than a separate life. <ref>Exodus 21:22</ref> | |||
# * It’s a Rabbinical prohibition. There’s no clear prohibition in the Torah, so our only real sources are the rabbinical sources. <ref>Sanhedrin עב; Tzitz Eliezer, Jerusalem, 1963, volume VII, number 48, p. 190.</ref> | |||
# * According to the Zohar, one who kills a fetus is guilty of destroying God’s handiwork. <ref>Hok L’Yisrael, Shemot for Monday, Zohar, Shemot 3b</ref> it is unclear if this constitutes a different view of the technical prohibition, or if this is just a reasoning explaining the severity of abortion. A punishment unlike that for murder is detailed. | |||
==Sources== | ==Sources== | ||
<references/>” | <references/>” | ||
