[Avodah] JP: What is Life?

[Chana Luntz via Avodah]

R' Alex Goldstein writes:
> What are the implications of having Rav Moshe be in the minority? If
> we reject Rav Moshe, we still are forced to admit it's prohibited,
> either under the biblical issur or chavalah (or something similar),
> or it is prohibited by dint of a rabbinic commandment.

> We are rabbinic Jews. Even if abortion is a rabbinic prohibition, we do
> not set aside rabbinic legislation unless there is a compelling reason
> to do so. The halakhah dictates that we must honor the status of the
> fetus as a human or at least as human-like, and that was my main point.

Well not so clearly, if you take the view it is the limb of the mother,
then it is not regarded as human like, the prohibition is, as you say
chavala -- we would not say my leg was human like.

Part of the problem is that as an American you are enmeshed in the
American debate, and which is framed in terms of pro-choice/pro-life.
Here in England the debate has been framed differently (although there
is now some seepage over the Atlantic, as there are in other things --
there always a handful of trick or treater's now that appear on one's
doorstep on Halloween).

In England the debate has traditionally been framed in terms of the
welfare of the mother. In order to get an abortion, a woman needs two
doctors to sign off that it is in her best interest. That in effect
means that abortion is virtually on demand, because for a doctor, it
is virtually a no brainer that carrying a pregnancy to full term is
not in the medical interest of the mother. I am sure the statistics
are much better these days regarding maternal deaths than they used
to be -- but the old figures were something like -- have an abortion --
2% rate of death, carry to full term -- 9% rate of death. If a woman
is pregnant and come and asks you for a procedure that involves a 2%
rate of death, and not doing it carries the risk of a 9% rate of death,
there can be no medical question. Of course, even abortion carries
medical risk -- which is why contraception is free on the NHS -- even
for women who normally have to pay for medication (eg are not below 18,
on benefits, etc). The medical risk of pregnancy for a woman is regarded
as too great unless the woman chooses to put herself into a high medical
risk category. And that is true even though deaths from childbirth have
come down -- they have only come down because of the active intervention
of the medical system. (And, as you might suspect,women who do not
look after themselves in pregnancy have a greater risk of complications
at birth -- and women who do not want the baby are less likely to look
after themselves in pregnancy, so indeed the medical risks are higher for
somebody who is asking for an abortion). If you want some idea of what
the statistics of maternal death would be without medical intervention
-- find out how many of your women friends who have had children have
had non elective caesareans (almost certain maternal death) or heavy
bleeding after giving birth (very high risk of maternal death) -- even
if no blood transfusion was needed.

If you understand a fetus as being a limb of the mother, then the
medical justification for abortion if a woman does not want to go
through the risks of childbirth becomes almost automatic. As rabbinic
Jews it is hard to see how one can, rabbinically, demand that somebody
put themselves into a situation of high risk of medical intervention or
death for a rabbinic mitzvah (indeed, according to the Meshech Chochma,
that is the reason women are exempt from pru u'rvu in the first place
-- because the Torah does not demand that people put their life on the
line for one of its mitzvos -- darchei darchei noam). It is only if you
hold that in fact the fetus is a life, that you get into the question
of weighing her life against its -- and possibly insisting that she go
forward with a highly dangerous procedure for its sake.

At the risk of quoting myself, I would emphasize that my main point was:

"Are the pro-choicers, even if they reject science and religion, willing
to grant that the fetus has any protected status at all, or will they
continue to strip the fetus of any shred of human dignity it possesses? A
society is judged, after all, by how it regards it weakest members."

Now the best way to ask this question is to frame it in the theoretical
(but we may not be that far off this). When the medical system develops
the ability to produce test tube babies all the way to term, without
needing a human womb, what sort of status do or should those foetuses
have? Should they have any protective status as life? At this point of
course there is no more question of interference with any rights of the
mother -- so what are these entities? Is it manslaughter if you were to
switch off the machine growing them? At what point? Are they required
to be given a halachic burial? At what point? Are they metamei b'ohel
(ie can a cohen visit if there might be some dead ones in the building)?
Do we have to keep the male cohanic ones separate due to risk that the
other ones might die?

Regards
Chana