[Avodah] Abortion isn't Murder

[Chana Luntz]

I 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.

Do you have a source for this (other than the gemora/Rambam regarding an
uber)?  One might want to argue that of the Rambam's three categories of
those who kill without kavana (perek 6 of hilchos rotzeach), at least those
who are considered karov to meizid should be within this category (but where
do you find it?) - but to take the extreme case of the shogeg karov l'ones -
wouldn't a more standard halachic analysis be shev v'al ta'aseh adif.  The
pasuk of al ta'amod al dam re'echa is described in the gemora (Sanhedrin
73a) using the examples of drowning in a river or being attacked by wild
beasts or by bandits (who can surely be assumed to have intent).  On what
basis are you able to extend this to somebody who inadvertently falls off a
roof, or otherwise is about to kill without intent? - ie situations where if
brought to beis din, the person would at most be exile to the irei miklat,
or even be deemed patur.

>> 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.

The Rambam (the same Rambam you are holding up as the halacha for a BN)
doesn't agree with you (assuming you read him as regarding abortion as
murder, as you have been doing up until now).  He says in Hilchot Melachim
perek 9 halacha 4:

בן נח שהרג נפש אפילו עובר במעי אמו נהרג עליו, וכן אם הרג טריפה או שכפתו
ונתנו לפני הארי או שהניחו ברעב עד שמת, הואיל והמית מכל מקום נהרג

A Ben Noach who kills a soul even a fetus in his mother’s womb is put to
death for it, and so if he kills a treifa or he captures him and puts him in
front of a lion or he places him in a [situation of] starvation until he
dies, since one who causes death in any event is killed...

You can't have it both ways.  If, according to the Rambam, abortion is
murder, then so too is the putting of someone in front of a lion, or placing
them in a situation of starvation, or allowing them to be cast into a fiery
furnace when one word could have released them.

Hence the assumption is that Tamar's equation was causing her own death as
against the murder of Yehuda, given that embarrassing in public is equated
with murder (plus, it would seem from Avos 3:11, losing her chelek in olam
habah for embarrassing Yehuda in public).  

BTW, I am not doctor, but I am sure that abortions could be arranged (if
they are not already done this way) by some sort of causation mechanism (the
giving of drugs, the cutting of the umbilical cord or something) - following
the Rambam, that would still be a problem, but it would seem from your
defence of Tamar, that it would not be to you.

>Zev Sero

Regards

Chana