Abortion in the jewish tradition of religious humanism

This chapter seeks to examine and integrate the diverse positions on abortion in the Jewish tradition by focusing on its underlying value perspective of religious humanism: human beings are created in the Divine Image. Arguing that literary and homiletic materials of aggadah are too ambiguous for normative guidance, the discussion here focuses on halakhah-the Jewish tradition of normative discourse. The fundamental Biblical passage is the law in Exodus regarding the causing of miscarriage, which clearly does not regard feticide as murder. Departing from the text's plain meaning, Hellenistic and some other Jews regarded a fully formed fetus as embodying the Divine Image. The rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, however, held that although there is a religious duty to promote the Divine Image through procreation, only a born infant is a person (nefesh) commanding full respect for its life. This has left room for disparate medieval and contemporary positions regarding the permissibility of abortion.