[Avodah] Shapiro Gives Fiery, Unprecedented Assault On Abortion On His Fox News Special

[Toby Katz]

From: "Prof. Levine" <larry62341 at optonline.net>
> IMO many people do not really understand the implications of an 
> abortion. I certainly did not fully grasp this until I saw Ben 
> Shapiro's take on abortion.

>> Ben Shapiro is a conservative commentator who is
>> Orthodox. Indeed, he proudly wears a yarmulka all of the time when
>> he speaks and is being interviewed.
...
>> Human life is a continuous process of growth, from the moment of
>> fertilization onward. Abortion is the killing of this human life......

Ben Shapiro is a brilliant commentator and makes a powerful case against
abortion. He also makes a Kiddush Hashem by publicly identifying as an
Orthodox Jew and always wearing a yarmulka. However, I am troubled by
this statement of his:

>> Human life is a continuous process of growth, from the moment of
>> fertilization onward. Abortion is the killing of this human life......

He has been influenced by Christian (especially Catholic) thinking on this subject, and is probably unaware of the Jewish view. Halacha does not consider the killing of a fertilized egg to be the same as abortion, let alone the same as murder. If a young woman is raped c'v the very best and most prudent thing she should do is take the "morning after pill" which prevents implantation of a fertilized ovum. To many Christians the morning after pill is exactly the same as abortion or infanticide, but the Torah does not view it that way.

When a certain couple with whom I am intimately acquainted were undergoing
IVF treatment in order to have children (which they ultimately did,
B'H), they asked their most serious shailos of a very prominent posek
in Baltimore. One shaila was what to do with excess embryos that were
created in the lab. An embryo is just a fertilized ovum that has developed
into a tiny little ball of cells, could be just eight or sixteen cells
at first. When you hear that embryos are created in a lab and sometimes
frozen to be thawed and implanted at a later date, please do not imagine
that little babies are in the freezer. (Only in Lakewood are young humans
put in the freezer.)

Since multiple pregnancies are hazardous for the mother and often do not
have a good outcome for the babies, as a rule no more than three embryos
are implanted in the uterus at one time. In IVF powerful hormones are
given which often result in the release of multiple eggs at ovulation,
which in turn result in multiple embryos at fertilization. But if you
are not going to implant more than three, what do you do with the extras?

The posek told the couple that they could do what they wanted -- freeze
the extras for a later attempt, or discard them.

Catholics would consider the discarding of these little balls to be the
same thing as murder, and possibly they would consider putting them in
a freezer to be child abuse.

We Torah Jews have more in common with devout Christians on these
issues than with secular Jews and gentiles. At least pro-life Christians
recognize such a thing as morality. But it is a mistake to assume that
Jewish (Torah) views and Christian views are identical. I suspect that
Ben Shapiro is not aware of a very important distinction.

--Toby Katz
t613k at aol.com