none2 > “It’s not a human life before 40 days”
Almost every issue is not absolute and requires a definition of where the boundary is. Talmud is very good at recognizing that. Rav Yirmiyahu in Bava Basra questioned one of such, seemingly arbitrary, rules: if you find a dove/chicken less than 50 amot from the house, presume it belongs to the house. If > 50 amot – you can take it. So, he asked – what if the bird has one feet on one side of 50 amot, and the other – on the other side, and he was kicked out of the yeshiva! Later in Bava Basra, rabbis begged him to come back and resolve some of the issues they could not without him. Moshe Elon (Israeli supreme court judge who was interested in embedding halakha into modern law) explains: 50 amot rule allows a simple farmer to make an objective decision whether the bird can be taken without involving lawyers. Questioning that means questioning the whole system of practical halakha where we can make ehrliche decisions in our lives and this deserved the expulsion.