[Avodah] Abortion isn't Murder

[Zev Sero]

On 18/07/2013 3:49 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 04:56:20PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> And you know this how? The pasuk (according to RY, whose view is the
>> halacha) explicitly calls the foetus "ha'adam".
>
> So a bas noach's fetus is ha'adam in the same sense that she herself is
> not? And she is called "ba'adam", with a patach beis. This is a derashah;
> peshat doesn't work. (The trop doesn't fit either.)

Yes, halacha is controlled by drash, not by peshat.  And yes, she may not
be "adam", but apparently she is "ha'adam".  I'm not sure of the exact
parameters of "atem keruyim adam".


> In any case, you are making a deduction from the ubar having "dam ha'adam"
> to its being a person that isn't being made by the Zohar, Tosafos,
> the Ran, or acharonim who consider the issur of a Jew killing the very
> same velad something other than retzichah.

The pasuk is clear; the ubar is an adam.  To say killing it is not an act
of retzicha, you would have to say that killing an adam isn't necessarily
such an act.  But I don't accept your word that they do in fact consider it
something other than retzicha.  Maybe they say it's a kind of retzicha that
can be allowed, or that's overridden by some other consideration, but unless
you show an explicit statement that it *isn't* retzicha, and that harigas
mi she'ieno mei`ameinu *is*, I dispute that they hold that way.


> To the extent of believing
> that's why the Rambam allows abortion in a risk to the mother for which
> he wouldn't allow infanticide.

He doesn't, and if you say he does you have to explain why the gemara
needs the argument "mishamayim ka-radfu lah".  Unless you say the Rambam,
by not quoting that gemera, paskens against it.



> You don't touch RnCL's argument that it doesn't look like we hold like
> R' Yishmael with an assertion.

I didn't see such an argument in her post.  Just that the Tosfos (which
everyone rejects) may hold like that.


> For that matter, how do you understand R' Yishmael in light of the fact
> that with one exception, the acharonim we discussed allow certain kulos
> in abortion by a Jew that wouldn't hold if it were shefichas dam because
> they give other bases for the issur. Do you believe that the ubar has
> dam ha'adam or not depending on who the shofeich is, like Mitzri water
> during makas dam?

That's precisely what I *reject*, and what I'm arguing *against*.   I'd
say those acharonim who seem to say this have to deal with that question!
Indeed, that question is the very reason I can't accept their opinions!


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
zev at sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan