Respected Leaders Please Respect Life

Two recent webinars on abortion in Judaism were hosted by highly regarded established Jewish institutions. Both feature well respected rabbis remarking that Judaism permits or mandates abortion far beyond saving the mother's physical life. One rabbi opposes limits on abortion because he believes these abrogate rabbinical authority to advise abortions [that fall short of the rare situation where the mother's life is in peril.] The other rabbi says before 40 days gestation no limits apply. Both rabbis give an impression that a parent's emotional distress justifies destroying their innocent child's life.

Narrow self interest, lack of awareness of unethical, dangerous and exploitive abortion industry practices, maintaining donor retention, concern for the feelings of congregation members with abortion experiences, and political considerations explain last week's misleading, unfortunate programs.

To some who share these views, their reasons appear justifiable and compassionate until the word baby is replaced with Jew. 'We oppose legal limits on killing babies because we want the right to kill babies when we deem them to be a threat[when they aren't] becomes 'We oppose legal limits on killing Jews because we want the right to kill Jews when we deem them to be a threat [when they aren't.]' Likewise, 'We think innocent babies should be tortured and destroyed because someone is upset that they exist'' becomes 'We think innocent Jews should be tortured and destroyed because someone is upset that they exist.' Sound familiar? Horrifying?

Of grave concern also are Jewish pro-abortion activists, who monopolize media outlets with slogans like 'abortion access is a Jewish value and a religious right', reviving blood libel accusations. Do our respected leaders realize that they incite anti-semitic violence by concurring with these dangerous, distorted opinions?

Underlying these views is an ignorance of abortion related realities and medical advancements. No longer is it necessary to torture and destroy a human being in the womb to save a mother's life. Moreover, mothers and fathers do not want to bear a lifetime burden of guilt for allowing this inhumane act when life saving and ethical alternatives are available. Jewish educational organizations need to offer abortion related curriculum to our faith and community leaders so they can effectively counsel vulnerable parents about pregnancy care support to alleviate stress, adoption options for parents whose circumstances are inadequate for child rearing, and medical advancements that preserve baby's life and parent's peace of mind. Rabbis can offer healing after abortion to their congregation members rather than add to chronic mental anguish by minimizing or denying the spiritual wounds incurred after abortion.

The first webinar on October 21, 2022 was hosted by United With Israel, 

https://unitedwithisrael.org/webinar-be-fruitful-and-multiply-child-rearing-adoption-birth-control-and-abortion/.

The second webinar on October 25, 2022 was hosted by the Institute for Jewish Ethics, https://ijeseminars.com/products/the-abortion-debate.

In the United With Israel webinar, Rabbi Ari Enkin, starts his comments on abortion by acknowledging that Judaism prohibits it. However, his exceptions expand over eight minutes until abortion as birth control, eugenics, and stress relief become acceptable in Judaism. He uses the word abortion casually, so sanitized that he and his listeners can conveniently ignore that killing children in abortion means that they are starved and/or dismembered in the first trimester, torn apart limb by limb in the second trimester, and suffer death inducing digitalis injections into their heart to insure delivery of a dead baby in the third trimester - all without pain medication. Or more barbarically, late term infants are born alive and murdered at once or sold to researchers who remove their organs while the baby is still breathing(yes, this really happens in research facilities all over the country), an unethical exploitation of human beings reminiscent of the Mengele type research done on Jews in Germany. 

https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org

In The Institute for Jewish Ethics webinar, the rabbi, lawyer, and doctor panelists include Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz of Ohr Samayach, lawyer Mary Ziegler, a UCDavis law professor who was a panelist in a discussion endorsed by the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

https://reproductiverights.org/abortion-law-us-abroad-national-constitution-center/

and doctor Hindi Stohl, a professor at UCLA Medical Center, where they offer 'abortion care.'

The Institute's webinar is behind a paywall, so we found a previous video of Rabbi Breitowitz talking about abortion in a discussion hosted by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. The Overturning of Roe v. Wade: The Jewish Perspective. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXbV40C5aN0

While Rabbi Breitowitz rightly acknowledges that Jewish law prohibits abortion, his objection to legislative restrictions on abortion because he believes they abrogate rabbinical authority to authorize them reflects an uninformed view of unethical practices of abortion industry profiteers, and the barbarism and genocide that has happened as a result of unlimited legal murder of unborn children. 

Abortion is dangerous for the mother, too. The media supresses countless incidents of women who have died from legal abortion, and who have life threatening, long term physical injuries from abortion procedures. Chemical abortion, now used in over 50% of abortions in ever expanding gestational ages with no medical oversight, endangers women's lives and is an abomination for Jews, whose family members died from chemical gases in concentration camps made by the same company that created chemical abortion pills. Rabbis who advise abortion for situations that do not threaten the mother’s physical life, such as prenatal testing anomalies, regre or emotional, financial, or mental stress, must be made aware of the terrible mental and emotional problems and physical risks that follow abortion. Child birth is safer and preferred by anyone who values the life and well being of the mother. 

https://youtu.be/VNUb-YvBjh4

For the health, safety and livelihood of babies, parents, families, and communities, let's encourage our leaders to speak for HaShem, the Creator of all life, rather than from their limited understanding and human self interest. We all started our lives in the womb. Instead of finding excuses to obliterate life, let us celebrate life by giving every human being the opportunity we were given to live.

Cecily Routman 

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

United With Israel Webinar

https://unitedwithisrael.org/webinar-be-fruitful-and-multiply-child-rearing-adoption-birth-control-and-abortion/ 

Rabbi Enkin's abortion opinion at 50:25 to 58:00.