Avram in MD

ubiquitin,

Ah but medicine and halacha define danger to life veeeery diferently.

Oh? Is there a consistent definition?

This comes up in many situations eg fasting (There is raely a medical indication for a person to avoid fasting for a day with the exception of the elderly) Rabbonim allow eating much more commonly especialy among pregant women, recent surgery etc.

1. The allowances for eating on fast days other than Yom Kippur are much more lenient than danger to life. And even when talking about Yom Kippur, there’s a big difference between permitting fasting in measures and eating normally.

2. I once heard a non-Jewish OB state that she was aghast that a pregnant woman would ever fast, because it would throw the baby and possibly the mother into ketosis. So I respectfully disagree with what seems to be your assertion that the medical definition of danger is stricter than Judaism’s, or that there is any real consistent definition at all. Additionally, due to the potential for liability or malpractice lawsuits, if an abortion ban with danger exceptions were passed, I’d imagine that most medical practitioners/panels would set the danger bar pretty low.

if abortions where illegal unless the life of amother was at risk, and your physician or medical expert felt there was no risk, and a competent Rav felt the life was at risk (either medicaly or psychologicly). What good would going to the Rav be?

Again, it seems like a big assumption to me that the “medical” definition (or to be more accurate with what we’re discussing, legislative definition interpreted by medical practitioners) will be stricter than the halachic one, especially when our lawsuit happy society would engender a tendency to err on the side of caution.

What do you support?

Here’s the thing: most abortions in the US are done for economic reasons or due to fear of disruption to life. Crisis pregnancy centers know this, so a big part of what they do is to steer pregnant women towards Federal programs such as Medicaid and WIC, offer counseling, and assistance with adoption if desired.

This will blow gaskets among the Republicans here, but to really reduce the number of abortions, we need more programs geared towards helping pregnant women and new mothers. For starters, insurance should cover prenatal care, birth, postpartum care, and a year of infant care 100%. To lower costs, low-risk pregnancies should be handled by midwives outside of a hospital setting. Paid family leave for the birth of a child should be mandated. University health centers should provide prenatal care. And there should be benefits for businesses that provide family friendly benefits such as flexible schedules, sick leave, teleworking, etc. Cultural changes are also needed, though this cannot be mandated. Babies are blessings, not burdens, and this message should be reinforced.

If my taxes go up so that abortions become exceedingly rare, then I’m happy to pay.

ubiquitin,

Whose position on abortion if turned into law is more compatible with you view, and how you would like the law in the country to be: Candidate A who favors abortion on demand or candidate B who would ban ALL abortions (and yes there are candidates who take these view, whether they “take a lot of heat” is irrelevant)?

…

If you are saying that the halachicly sanctioned cases do not exist, or that they can be worked into a viable constitutionally sound legal system. On either of those points you are simply wrong and there is no room for differing iopinions

You are making an argument here using a false dilemma fallacy. Your “valid” positions are:

1. Ban all abortions without exception (you declare this position “valid” in your mind, but disagree with it)

2. Allow all abortions

Joseph presents a 3rd option:

3. Ban abortions with exceptions for the life of the mother, including psychological factors

You reject this 3rd option as invalid because its exceptions would perhaps not be consistent with halachic exceptions. However, options 1 and 2 are also not consistent with halacha, so what makes option 3 worse than 1 in your mind? To play your game, if you were forced to choose between options 1 and 3, which would you choose?

Also, given U.S. viewpoints, the Catholic bogeymen and Scott Walker are red herrings. Option 1 could never pass Congress, and supporters of option 1 would line up behind option 3, since it’s better than option 2 to them.

sushibagel,

The purpose of not eating meat during the nine days, which is to remember the churban beis hamikdash, so to that into a benefit isn’t quite right.

I think the fleishig restaurants’ “9-Days Menus” are intended to be an avoidance of loss, not a benefit. These are very different things.

ubiquitin,

Why are you labeling the song as a mashal? It seems more like a metaphor.

Real Jews run Fedora [ducking to avoid the rotten tomatoes] 🙂

gavra_at_work,

So as not to make the same mistake, what type of hat (and jacket) do you mean?

In my neighborhood, a cat-in-the-hat style hat, and a plaid jacket with a water squirting flower on the outside pocket. On Shabbos, same thing, but lose the flower. There is a growing subculture that favors big, yellow hats like Curious George’s friend wears. Other communities might be different.

old man,

Virtually no one is careful about a clean and properly shaped hat, jacket and matching (clean) pants.

Ok, so what makes matching pants any more reasonable in the definition of dressing nicely for davening than a hat and jacket?

RebYidd23,

Spiders don’t seek human blood. They don’t bite you if you don’t bother them.

Tell that to the one that bit me while I slept!

hakohen53,

Until JFK decided to appear at his inauguration without a hat, that was what everyone wore.

I have heard this before, but I don’t think JFK had anything to do with US clothing styles moving away from hats. I don’t know the reason, but if I were to guess, I would say it had to do with cars becoming ubiquitous.

gavra_at_work,

I’m bringing up a Fedora because of the claim that it is the “Mesorah” to wear one, over other types of hats that Jews wore over the ages (yes, including those that the Goyim made us wear).

Maybe hakohen53’s post was edited before I read it, but I did not see where he claimed that there was a mesora for wearing a fedora, or any specific style or color. He just said a hat. The first mention of a fedora in this thread that I read was DaMoshe’s, and the second was yours.

If the parents say they will give it back to the child, then they must do so. I don’t understand why there is any uncertainty about this.

A loosely related question:

Is it possible for an action to be potentially defensible on halachic grounds, yet still immoral?

gavra_at_work,

Just like there is “no taxation without representation”, there should be “no representation without taxation “.

I know you wrote this 3+ years ago, but you do know that property and income taxes are not the only taxes that exist, right? Even poor people pay sales and utility taxes.

Sam2,

Hence, it’s just Nezek to abort.

What really bothers me in this sentence is the word “just.”

Everyone,

I really appreciate this discussion, but have to confess that it’s rapidly going beyond my realm of knowledge (if it hasn’t already since the beginning of the thread). I would also like to mention at this point that I didn’t articulate what bothered me in my original story very well.

No, I do not think it is ok to perform tests that wouldn’t change the prenatal care or actions at birth, but are intended solely to determine whether the baby was wanted or not. But upon reflection, we’ve had other care providers offer the same testing, with no mention of abortion whatsoever. And we’ve just said no thank you, and I didn’t feel bothered. More so, it was the ease and quickness in which abortion was mentioned, like it was no big deal, and what any “sane” person would surely want to do. It was, as I mentioned above, the cultural mindset that bothered me.

So the point is taken that I can probably be more open minded about the morality of abortion for potential problems (though I’m extremely uncomfortable with the idea on an intellectual and emotional level), but I still think the doctor’s benevolent intentions were coming from a very wrong place.

gavra_at_work,

Can you define a “shor” rodef vs. an “adam” rodef?

Thanks!

Sam2,

Pshat in the Rambam is the exact opposite. The whole point is that a baby can never be a Rodef during labor because that’s Tivo Shel Olam and Ain Dochin Nefesh Bifnei Nefesh. Thus, before Hotzi Rosho, the fetus isn’t a Nefesh.

That is not necessarily so. The Rambam does not state that a partially born baby is no longer a rodef. How could it not be, the mother is still in danger! It makes even more sense to me that when the baby is partially born, the mother herself can attain the status of rodef with respect to the baby – and in this case where they are pursuing each other, we cannot choose one over the other.

Also, I am enjoying the discussion of these points, but I don’t feel that they are fundamentally relevant to my point, unless you can tell me that there is a valid halachic opinion today that holds we can abort a fetus when the fetus is not at all a rodef (and yes, I understand that there are opinions that set the bar for rodef with respect to a fetus lower than others). Because that’s what the pro-choice camp holds.

gavra_at_work,

Interesting theory and not implausible. I would expect there to be a source in Rishonim or Achronim as such (Rodef = person), and invite the Olam to help out with finding such a source.

I think in this case context is a better guide than a concordance. These halachos don’t happen in a vacuum, and all of the surrounding halachos are talking about human rodfim. If the fetus did not have at least some aspect of personhood, why would we need it to have the status of rodef at all?

Sam2,

But I would never call it immoral to believe one can self-inflict pain. Stupid, but not immoral.

What would you call someone who stands aside while another hurts him/herself and does nothing?

gavra_at_work,

I thought the argument against person-hood of a fetus was from the Din of Rodef, that we don’t say “Mai Chaziz” about the fetus and it’s mother at any stage, even though we would say it once “Hotze Rosho”.

That was my understanding as well.

The point I’m trying to make is that the secular threshold for abortion (if there is a threshold at all) is not a din of rodef. Therefore, I don’t think we should be using the halachic argument regarding fetal status with respect to the mother as a cover for the secular/pro-choice position. There may be overlap in some instances of real-world application, I grant that, but they are originating from two entirely different moral frameworks, so from that perspective I believe the overlap is coincidental.

Sam2,

Avram in MD: As far as I know, very few states allow late-term abortion. It’s second trimester or earlier.

And the pro-choice lobby hates that to pieces.

Up until now you have been trying to get me to accept the validity of the pro-choice position via a halachic shitta that defines “personhood” at birth. So what is the purpose of the above statement in your argument?

And there are Poskim who are pretty Meikil about terminating a pregnancy. Not carte blanche, no. But there are Poskim who will allow it for relatively minor reasons.

I have a strong feeling that there are some important details omitted from that statement.

And the Halachic Tzdadim are important. Again, they might not prove the doctor’s intentions, but they should have strong bearing on the relative morality of the case.

Using the traffic light example from above again, if a person who believes they can run a red light whenever happens to run a red light on his way to the ER, the fact that his action is consistent with the shitta of Rav B is coincidental. It doesn’t magically turn his overall position on traffic lights into a defensible one.

Sam2,

Avram: There’s a reason I couched it in Halachic terms.

This doctor is not Jewish, and was not basing anything on halacha. I repeat my question from above: Is there any halachic shitta that states that we have carte blanche to do with a fetus whatever we want? If not, then what are you trying to prove to me through this discussion?

Post-birth abortion is murder.

But you wrote above: Just because we think we are right does not make someone with another opinion on it a murderer nor is there action evil. ?

But saying that Ubbar Yerech Imo Hu and that there might be situations where one can harm himself for his own good isn’t beyond the pale.

I’m not disputing that. If you read through my previous posts carefully, I do not believe that I used the term “murder”, nor have I stated what “my shitta” is.

And secular people who hold that the difference between personhood and not is birth certainly have a leg to stand on.

No they do not, because of key phrases of this “leg” that you are trying to give them: “situations” and “for his own good.” The secular world’s “shitta” does not contain these key conditions. Not at least the ones that exist in halacha. And that makes a world of difference!

Let me explain with a less emotionally charged issue. Suppose traffic lights were brought down in halachic discussions. Now, Rav A paskens that one may never run a red light. Rav B paskens that one may run a red light if rushing to the hospital during an emergency. The secular world, on the other hand, holds that one may run a red light whenever, for pretty much any reason. You cannot come and say that the secular world has a leg to stand on because of Rav B!

For context, the moderators closed a different thread (thank you coffee addict for providing the link) but implied that Sam2 and I could continue a tangential discussion that began towards the end of that thread.

I wrote,

How does the way the doctor characterizes the unborn baby change anything [i.e., my contention that abortion due to a potential problem detected by optional screening is wrong]?

Ubiquitin responded:

Um becasue this entire conversation is about the doctor’s intentions

No, I do not believe this entire conversation is about the doctor’s intentions. As I had already stated, I had no question that the doctor’s intentions were noble, intended to be helpful, and came from a good place. I had no quarrel with the doctor! Nor did my respect for the doctor diminish at all. My problem is with the cultural environment in which those actions can be defined as good things.

Sam2,

Do you not see any Tzad to be Mechalek between a fetus and a person.

So if we say that a fetus is not a “person”, does that give us carte blanche to do whatever we want with the fetus? Does any shitta hold that way? I think it is highly incorrect to map halachic concepts of a fetus onto the distinctions that the secular world draws. They are extremely different, and have different intents.

I find the whole secular distinction to be silly to begin with. Pick up any copy of What To Expect When You Are Expecting or Your Pregnancy Week By Week or the literature given out at an OB’s office and see what they call the fetus: your baby! This focus on exclusively calling the fetus a fetus (e.g., not a baby, not a person!) only crops up when discussing abortion. So when you peel away all of the disingenuous layers, the bald truth of the secular position is this: a fetus becomes a baby when the parents decide that they want it.

There are those who think that as long as it’s in the mother, it’s still Yerech Imo and can be excised if necessary like any other limb.

Define necessary in this case. I imagine it is quite different than what the secular culture holds.

Just because we think we are right does not make someone with another opinion on it a murderer nor is there action evil. We think it’s murder (maybe).

So it seems that you are arguing that there is no absolute good or absolute evil. It is all relative and based on cultural norms?

So if, G-d forbid, in 100 years people exclusively call a newborn younger than 1 month a neonate (don’t call it a baby or a person! Science has proven that there is no sentience by our futuristic definition of sentience!), and it was legal to kill a neonate if it wasn’t wanted or it was sick or deformed, would you then say that just because someone believes that they are not wrong because they have good intentions? They don’t have the Torah to guide them after all?

But do you really think that the Shittah that the determining factor between personhood and not is birth has no moral weight whatsoever?

It has weight, but it has not one iota of anything to do with the story I told.

Sam2,

Avram: Only because you characterize terminating the pregnancy as “killing an unborn baby”. He clearly doesn’t.

How does the way the doctor characterizes the unborn baby change anything?

ubiquitin,

Yes

I cannot see how that can be so in a monotheistic framework.

Of course! Though that isnt what we are discussing

It may not be what you are discussing, but it is what feivel et al. are discussing. That’s my entire point.

Fair enough, but Good intentions are deffinitly not relaterd to evil intentions

Never said they were.

A personal example: when my wife and I were expecting our first, we went to a doctor for our prenatal appointments. At one very early appointment, the doctor offered some screening that would potentially detect issues, so we could (in the doctor’s words) “decide whether we wanted to continue with the pregnancy.” Now, I fully 100% believe that the doctor is a good person, and had the purely good intentions of giving us the ability to avoid potential anguish and suffering. We didn’t switch doctors, and the doctor was amazing throughout the pregnancy, birth, and even beyond. But I also believe that the concept of killing an unborn baby because of a potential problem is 100% wrong and evil. So it’s a good person, with good intentions, but a dangerously wrong application.