Abortion When the Unborn Baby Receives an Abnormal Prenatal Test Result

This is the fourth of seven Jewish legal opinions regarding the status of unborn human life that depart from the protections for unborn human life stated clearly in Tanakh. We are offering these seven opinions in parallel with the seven Haftorot of Consolation that fall on the seven consecutive Shabbats between Tisha B' Av and Rosh Hashanah. This week we examine the opinion that allows for abortion when the unborn baby receives an abnormal prenatal test result.

Before the widespread use of prenatal testing, sick and imperfect unborn children were not killed in utero. They were given the dignity to be born, pass away, grieved and buried. Advances in amniocentesis testing from the 1950s together with the introduction of ultrasound imaging through the 1980s revealed abnormalities hitherto undetected. Prenatal testing gave doctors and parents the opportunity to evaluate the health status of unborn children. Abortion legislation gave doctors and parents the legal right to kill them.

Jewish legal opinions on this issue appear in 1975 with discussions about aborting unborn babies diagnosed with Tay Sachs syndrome. The Tay Sachs discussions among Jewish legal scholars opened up the possibility of killing sick unborn children to save them from suffering and to save families from the emotional pain of giving their infant children palliative care. These opinions started with Tay Sachs and Down syndrome babies, then expanded to include other abnormalities or imperfections that are found by prenatal testing.

Peninei Halakhah, Simchat Habayit U’Virkhato 9:5

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, upheld the prohibition of abortion in cases of abnormal prenatal test results because a sick baby is not an imminent mortal threat to the mother. Thank you, Rabbi Feinstein!

The introduction in 2011 of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for prenatal genetic irregularities increased the scope of detected chromosomal abnormalities in unborn children. Promoted as safer than amniocentesis and more comprehensive than ultrasound imaging, NIPT is now recommended to all pregnant women to diagnose Down syndrome, trisomy, Tay Sachs, muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

Evolution of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)

Emergen Research values the NIPT market at $10.8 billion dollars and growing. Vigorous market activity comes from increasing chromosomal abnormality rates, increasing maternal age, increasing awareness of fetal health, and worldwide adoption of NIPT as an ever-more accessible and safer form of diagnosis.

Prenatal Testing Market Size

While NPIT poses no direct risk to the mother or baby, it can be lethal. The significant number of false positive results found within the utilitarian, profit driven medical model lead to aborting healthy children.

Natera agrees to a $8.5M settlement to end class action

Identifai, an Israeli biotech company, is about to launch the next evolution in prenatal testing that will screen for 250 genetic diseases as early as the 9th week of pregnancy. How many children will fail these tests? How many will be deemed incompatible with life? How many will be killed? 

Breakthrough Prenatal Test Detects 250 Diseases at 9 Weeks

In the May 2019 issue of First Things, Justice Clarence Thomas quotes Allan Guttmacher, who explicitly endorsed eugenic reasons for abortion. He believed that “it should be permissible to abort any pregnancy . . . in which there is a strong probability of an abnormal or malformed infant.” Also quoted is legal scholar, Glanville Williams, who was open to the possibility of eugenic infanticide, at least in some situations. Justice Thomas writes, ”And with today’s prenatal screening tests and other technologies, abortion can easily be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics.”

Abortion and Eugenics

Another esteemed legal authority, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, zt”l, anticipated a time when doctors would frighten parents into a decision to kill their imperfect baby. “And if you kill the fetus, a time will come when even infants will be killed…The mother will get frightened after the baby will be born…and the doctor will say her life depends upon the murder of the baby. And you have a word, mental hygiene, whatever you want you can subsume under mental hygiene…And there is now a tendency for rabbis in the US to march along with society, otherwise they’ll be looked upon as reactionaries.”

‘You Murder the Children’: Rav Soloveitchik on Abortion

Rabbi Soloveitchik passed in 1993. He remained loyal to Torah and the right to life from conception in the face of opposition within his Orthodox community by those whose views on abortion were corrupted by secular attitudes. Thank you, Rabbi Soloveitchik! 

The anticipated rise in prenatal screening as a profit driven, eugenics enterprise will undoubtedly lead to the destruction of many innocent children. Some will be perfectly healthy. Some will be very sick. Some will have treatable medical conditions. All will be denied a voice and their God given dignity and right to life.

This cruel and unusual treatment overrides our obligation to protect innocent human life and to do no violence to the helpless. In its wake are slain children, guilt ridden parents and an ever expanding death culture.

Hope for humanity persists, however. It gains momentum each time pro-life medical professionals and activists speak up for these children and their parents. Here are four excellent resources that will inspire every pro-life advocate to emulate our esteemed legal scholars.

The Pro-Life Case for Prenatal Diagnosis

https://aaplog.org/episode/the-pro-life-case-for-prenatal-diagnosis/

Prenatal Testing: Making the Right Choice

https://mycharisma.com/news/prenatal-testing-making-the-right-choice/

The Pro-Life Reply to: "Babies with Disabilities Are Better Off Aborted”

https://youtu.be/d6GewCpuC30?si=vJubSlcmURtkLfXu

The Pro Life Reply to: "Abort Babies with Terminal Diagnoses"

https://youtu.be/FWWW1lMrLAE?si=IVcg1440p5Vcqp2R

Please share this post on your social media to amplify our message in this troubled world. Thank you.

Cecily Routman 

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. She envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.