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When Judaism Meets Science
Posts Tagged ‘life’
The Last Civil Conversation on Abortion?
Dr. Elisheva Shanes 
Rabbi Andrea London 
Roger Price
On Thursday, June 23, 2022, one day before the Supreme Court’s momentous decision in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., three Jews got together to talk about Jews, Judaism, and Abortion. Rabbi Andrea London, rabbi at Beth Emet – The Free Synagogue, in Evanston, Illinois hosted the event. The other participants were Dr. Elisheva D. Shanes, Director of Autopsy in the Department of Pathology and Assistant Professor of Pathology (Perinatal and Gynecologic) at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, and Roger Price, author of When Judaism Meets Science, and the Blogmaster of this blog.
Over the course of about ninety (90) minutes, the trio talked about Jewish attitudes, traditional Jewish texts, Jewish values, and Jewish arguments in the Supreme Court, all regarding when human life begins, abortion, and other related topics, including the science of biology. As you will see and hear, there were times of agreement and times of disagreement, but as you will also see and hear the discussion among the participants was respectful and civil in tone.
Discussions on abortion, before the Court’s decision in Dobbs, and certainly after, have often not been marked by a desire to listen to and learn from opposing views, much less to consider whether there are points of agreement on which some consensus could be built. Part of that arises from the nature of the issue, as the maintenance or termination of a pregnancy often presents stark alternative scenarios for the pregnant woman and the fetus or embryo she is carrying. But those scenarios should not preclude compassion for those involved, rather they should make more urgent the importance of reasoning together. After all, Hillel did not ask simply “If I am not for me, who will be for me?” He also asked “If I am only for myself, what am I?” The great empathetic rabbi recognized that life can be messy, that we can be presented with situations where values and traditions are in conflict with each other.
Resolutions of tough issues will not come from reflexive rhetoric, bumper sticker philosophies, incomplete and distorting memes, or, for sure, the loudest bullhorn. They will come, if at all, by a willingness to be both caring and thoughtfully constructive with respect to some of the most difficult circumstances any of us will have to face. Please don’t let this be the last civil conversation on abortion.
The entire conversation can be accessed here, with the conversation beginning about seven (7) minutes into the recording:
When Jews Argue in the Supreme Court About Abortion
(Credit: supremecourt.gov)
That Jews have disparate viewpoints on abortion is not news, but the argument has mostly been maintained and contained within the tribe. Every once in a while, though, it erupts into the public square, and the current consideration by the Supreme Court of the United States of the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Health, known as the Mississippi abortion case, is one of those times. What are Jews saying, and why?
The Context.
The extent to which abortion – the termination of the life of an embryo or fetus – occurs is not documented precisely in the United States. Since 1969, however, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) has collected data on legally induced abortions from most, but not all, states. Its findings for 2018 disclose that 619,591 legally induced abortions were reported to it. Of these, 92.2% were performed during or before the 13th week of gestation. Another 6.9% were reported between weeks 14 and 20. Less than 1% were reported in or after week 21.
The Case.
The case before the United States Supreme Court arises from the enactment by the State of Mississippi in 2018 of the state’s Gestational Age Act (the “Act”) which prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, with exceptions for, and only for, medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality. Because the ban prohibits abortions prior to the normal time for fetal viability (at about 22-24 weeks of pregnancy), the Act runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s previous holdings in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 883 (1992). As Mississippi acknowledges, the very purpose of the Act is to challenge Roe, Casey, and their progeny. To understand the legal issues in the case, then, we need to look first at the primary precedents.
read moreThe Curious Consensus of Jews on Abortion
That different Jews have disparate views is not news. What is news is when most Jews agree on a particular idea or approach. And so it is with the curious consensus of Jews on abortion.
In mid-2012, the Public Religion Research Institute (“PRRI”) published its findings from a 2012 survey of Jewish values (the “Jewish Values Survey”). The survey sought to measure the opinions of American Jews on a wide variety of political and economic issues, both domestic and foreign, as well as with respect to certain religious beliefs and practices. Some of those opinions were analyzed internally by Jewish denomination and externally by comparison to those of other faith or ethnic groups.
While Jews varied considerably in their views of a wide range of topics, on one – abortion – they were not only reasonably cohesive in their attitude, but strikingly different from other groups. Given the emphasis in the Jewish tradition on valuing life, on equating the preservation of one life with the preservation of a world and, conversely, the destruction of one life as the destruction of the world (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5), this result, on its face, seems as anomalous as it is clear. read more
