[Avodah] Abortion isn't Murder

[Zev Sero]

On 20/07/2013 8:17 PM, Chana Luntz wrote:
>   (Although I do confess that while it seems pashut to me
> that the uber is a k'rodef, and not rodef mamash, that seems to me to have
> little to do with the question at hand.  A rodef mamash has to have intend
> to kill (or rape or whatever).  If I chase after you to kill you, I am a
> rodef.  If I accidently fall out of a tall building, or are pushed by
> somebody wanting to hurt me, and you happen to be underneath where I am
> falling, you might get killed, but I can't see how you can say that I am a
> rodef mamash.  A baby has no intent to kill its mother, quite the opposite,
> if it had an intent, it would be to save her.  Therefore it cannot be
> described it as a rodef mamash, the most it might have is a halachic status
> like a rodef).

A literal rodef is someone who is chasing the victim. Someone standing
in one place and shooting is not literally rodef, but he is "kerodef",
i.e. he has the same halacha as a rodef, since the actual chasing is
irrelevant. "Rodef" is just an example Chazal gave of the underlying
halacha.

And the *law* of rodef (or "kerodef" if you want to be hypercorrect)
does not require intent. The person falling off the roof and about to
fall on a person and kill him is kerodef and may be killed.


> Note also, getting back to Tamar, that even were you correct in your
> position regarding the gmar din falling also on the uber vis a vis Yehuda
> (who believed she was guilty and hence would therefore be justified in
> putting her and the two ubarim to death, since the gmar din fell on them
> too), but that doesn't work for Tamar herself.  Tamar knows she is innocent,
> and hence her deliberately putting Peretz and Zerach into the fire (via
> herself) to be killed, would clearly be a violation of the issur of rechitza
> if indeed issur of rechitza there was.

She wouldn't be deliberately putting anyone into the fire. If she were,
then forget about her children, she would be murdering herself, which is
just as bad as murdering someone else. She would merely be failing to
prevent others from killing them, and she had no more duty to prevent them
from killing her children than she did to prevent them from killing her.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name