Abortion

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How could Jewish law state that in some cases abortion is required by law, whereas Catholic teaching requires to save the life of the child? What changed.
 
Jack_Bauer said:
How could Jewish law state that in some cases abortion is required by law, whereas Catholic teaching requires to save the life of the child? What changed.
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I’ve always wondered whether the Christian concept of ‘Original Sin’ and the consequences of not being baptized has something to do with it.
 
What precisely are you referring to when you say Jewish law? Specific cites?
 
Jack_Bauer said:
How could Jewish law state that in some cases abortion is required by law, whereas Catholic teaching requires to save the life of the child? What changed.
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They believe, and please correct me if I am wrong, I am not overly knowledgeable about Judaism, that in Genesis Adam is created from the dust before God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and becomes a living soul. We agree with that interpretation, but from that they believe that God created Adam’s body before the soul was a part of him, and therefore the body must be formed before it becomes equal to the mother. Once again, I am not certain if this is entirely their belief and if this Genesis passage is their only point of reference.

We look at a few different passages.
22 If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman’s husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award. 23 But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life, 24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, (Exodus 21:22-24, D-R)
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity
And in sin did my mother conceive me (Psalms 51:5, RSV-CE)
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For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from the works is dead (James 2:26 RSV-CE)
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In the first passage it is acknowledging that their must be retribution for the child. As for James, since the child is growing and is therefore alive one can come to the conclusion that abortion is the death of a life which is already one with the soul.

As for the second quote that I have yet to mention, David said that he was conceived in sin, or, in other words, he was stained with original sin at conception, and thus a spirit must be present at conception.

Many of the Fathers of the Church wrote on this issue as well. You can view them here, but obviously those of the Jewish faith wouldn’t have followed their teachings (or the book of James).

I don’t know where the separation took place, but Catholics have always took this stance on abortion.
 
karebear92 said:
Since the first passage calls for life for life, it is acknowledging that the child is alive
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Not as simple as that.

The passage actually makes a distinction between the mother and the child, what happens to the mother falls under the usual ‘eye for eye’ recompense (not punishment, recompense) formula where what happens to the child does not - thus creating a distinction.
 
Kaninchen said:
Not as simple as that.

The passage actually makes a distinction between the mother and the child, what happens to the mother falls under the usual ‘eye for eye’ recompense (not punishment, recompense) formula where what happens to the child does not - thus creating a distinction.
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Sorry I made a mistake when typing and you caught it before i had time to correct my mistake.:o I meant that the wife would already be covered under the law of retribution (I think that is what it is called), so their is a distinction between the mother and the baby, as in there must be retribution for the child as well. I didn’t mean to say that it accounts for the child’s life with a life, but that the child is important and distinct under the law and must be accounted for.
 
karebear92 said:
Sorry I made a mistake when typing and you caught it before i had time to correct my mistake.:o I meant that the wife would already be covered under the law of retribution (I think that is what it is called), so their is a distinction between the mother and the baby, as in there must be retribution for the child as well.
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It’s not a law of retribution, it’s a law of restitution - a flock of sheep for an eye or one sheep for a tooth (or whatever). The child did not fall under the usual formula, it was to be determined by the judges.
 
Kaninchen said:
It’s not a law of retribution, it’s a law of restitution - a flock of sheep for an eye or one sheep for a tooth (or whatever). The child did not fall under the usual formula, it was to be determined by the judges.
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Thank you! 🙂 I definitely need to learn more about this stuff. I am not the best to respond, but nobody was really posting to answer his question. I wrote those three passages down in class when one of my classmates asked my teacher about this. Apparently I forgot or didn’t understand what she was saying quite as well as I thought 🙂 Thank you for correcting me.
 
karebear92 said:
Thank you! 🙂 I definitely need to learn more about this stuff. I am not the best to respond, but nobody was really posting to answer his question. I wrote those three passages down in class when one of my classmates asked my teacher about this. Apparently I forgot or didn’t understand what she was saying quite as well as I thought 🙂 Thank you for correcting me.
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Ah, but he asked why it had changed. 😉
 
tlimon said:
What precisely are you referring to when you say Jewish law? Specific cites?
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jewfaq.org/sex.htm
Abortion
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Jewish law not only permits, but in some circumstances requires abortion. Where the mother’s life is in jeopardy because of the unborn child, abortion is mandatory.
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An unborn child has the status of “potential human life” until the majority of the body has emerged from the mother. Potential human life is valuable, and may not be terminated casually, but it does not have as much value as a life in existence. The Talmud makes no bones about this: it says quite bluntly that if the fetus threatens the life of the mother, you cut it up within her body and remove it limb by limb if necessary, because its life is not as valuable as hers. But once the greater part of the body has emerged, you cannot take its life to save the mother’s, because you cannot choose between one human life and another
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