Don’t recruit Judaism
I am very pleased to note that Hadley Freeman was not inconvenienced by any qualms when she had an abortion (When I had an abortion in New York , it was a profoundly Jewish decision, I July). I am very pleased to note that her favourite film heroines were Jewish. I am very pleased that we live in a country where we can express opinions that are abhorrent to one another. However, she should not recruit Judaism (either in its traditional or liberal versions) to rally to the cause.
The idea that life begins at conception may or may not be the original preserve of Catholic and Evangelical Christians. Perhaps Ms Freeman is better versed in Christian theology than I, but she appears somewhat confused about both the Jewish stance on abortion and modern science which, far from proving that a foetus is not alive or sentient, demonstrates that both a heartbeat and the ability to feel pain begin earlier than the “quickening” which traditionally was accepted by believers and non-believers alike as the first sign of life. She may be correct that the right to own a gun is considered more important than the right to attend school without being murdered but the argument is otiose, since 1) a child that is never born will not benefit from this right 2) we are not debating the right to bear arms; and it is disingenuous if she intends to insinuate that all those who oppose abortion on demand (which is not the same as opposing it on any grounds) favour gun ownership on demand.
The Jewish teaching on abortion does prioritise saving the life of the mother over that of the child, eg Maimonides’ opinion that it is considered a rodef, but it does not condone abortion simply because one’s own life is going to be “disastrously undone by a baby” and, again, the argument about when life begins or what comes after death is redundant here. If “what matters is how you live your life on earth now”, then while this has become a truism that contains multitudes, the answer may not be what we want to hear when we cite (and often misuse) tikun olam.
Ruth Hart
Edgware HA8