What's your take on stem cell research?

[The One and Only Mo]

I met this guy yesterday with hydro-hydrocephalus and we were shmoozing for a bit. Since we're both Jews, wwe got into talking politics. He got me thinking hard about stem cell research, and I've always supported it, especially since my step dad died of brain tumor last February.  It always made sense to me to do research in order to cure sickness. What do you guys think?

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

I met this guy yesterday with hydro-hydrocephalus and we were shmoozing for a bit. Since we're both Jews, wwe got into talking politics. He got me thinking hard about stem cell research, and I've always supported it, especially since my step dad died of brain tumor last February.  It always made sense to me to do research in order to cure sickness. What do you guys think?

Well I've been told it's mutar (permitted) in halacha, just as a preface.

I am certainly a proponent of stem cell research and other types of scientific research that can help save lives, cure disease and relieve suffering.   Stem cell research in particular is a very hot field with enormous potential in so many avenues, and that is the area of research I would like to enter in the coming years, B'ezrat Hashem.

[New Yorker]

Going into my 43rd birthday in August so I am ALL FOR IT! I want them to stem-cell the crap out of me and keep me pink and healthy and pretty! 

[muman613]

As with any technology I believe that the morality of its use, and its possible misuse, must be weighed before we jump on the bandwagon. I am sure that the halacha which KWRBT talks about concerns the use of the stem-cell to prolong the life of a person, to heal from illness. But I don't think that it should be used for vain purposes such as beauty and comfort.

Every technology which man discovers ultimately provides a test for our morality. I sometimes fear that some scientists, as they did during WWII, will attempt to use technology against the innocent. The tree of Knowledge is indeed a double-edged sword which provides humanity with a constant challenge.

[New Yorker]

As with any technology I believe that the morality of its use, and its possible misuse, must be weighed before we jump on the bandwagon. I am sure that the halacha which KWRBT talks about concerns the use of the stem-cell to prolong the life of a person, to heal from illness. But I don't think that it should be used for vain purposes such as beauty and comfort.

Every technology which man discovers ultimately provides a test for our morality. I sometimes fear that some scientists, as they did during WWII, will attempt to use technology against the innocent. The tree of Knowledge is indeed a double-edged sword which provides humanity with a constant challenge.

I disagree, beauty must be cultivated and preserved, and comfort is important too! 

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

As with any technology I believe that the morality of its use, and its possible misuse, must be weighed before we jump on the bandwagon. I am sure that the halacha which KWRBT talks about concerns the use of the stem-cell to prolong the life of a person, to heal from illness. But I don't think that it should be used for vain purposes such as beauty and comfort.

Every technology which man discovers ultimately provides a test for our morality. I sometimes fear that some scientists, as they did during WWII, will attempt to use technology against the innocent. The tree of Knowledge is indeed a double-edged sword which provides humanity with a constant challenge.

"Science" is not a free-for-all, Muman.  There are ethical standards, quality standards, peer review, oversight, etc etc.   What you refer to in WWII (I'm not sure what you refer to.   Nazi doctors doing cruel experiments on people?  I'm going to assume it is that.  Please state your points openly and clearly), was NOT science in any way shape or form.  Whatever scientific element any of it may have had, is nullified because it broke ethical boundaries.   The ethical boundaries exist within science today and are protected by law and the institutions involved.   It makes absolutely zero sense to make comparisons with world war two and an evil oppressive nazi regime which had no restrictions on itself and treated human beings like animals.

Furthermore, in WWII science played a huge role in the defeat of the Axis powers.  Without the major scientific development of the nuclear bomb, how could there have been a nagasaki or hiroshima?   "Bombs away!"

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Anything that involves dissecting embryos for spare parts is an abomination.

[Rubystars]

Anything that involves dissecting embryos for spare parts is an abomination.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be against embryonic stem cell research yet support the morning after pill. They call me a hypocrite. However i see that stem cell research can go on with alternatives to embryonic stem cells, and the morning after pill is an alternative to abortion, which is much, much worse.

[rebel_conservative]

the morning after pill is an alternative to abortion, which is much, much worse.

it is not an alternative to abortion, it is an abortion.  A fertilised embryo, i.e. a human life, is created, but prevented from naturally attaching and developing. 

[Dr. Dan]

From a rodef aborted fetus I would sound like it is ok, but I don't think Gd would like that very much. Its like harvesting organs from a murderer without asking his permission.

[Rubystars]

the morning after pill is an alternative to abortion, which is much, much worse.

it is not an alternative to abortion, it is an abortion.  A fertilised embryo, i.e. a human life, is created, but prevented from naturally attaching and developing. 

Most don't attach naturally but are simply passed. I think using it as regular birth control is wrong, but in the case of a rape incident it just ensures that nothing from the rapist implants (probably wouldn't have anyway). At that stage there is no pain involved, whereas an actual abortion is very gruesome.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

From a rodef aborted fetus I would sound like it is ok, but I don't think Gd would like that very much. Its like harvesting organs from a murderer without asking his permission.

What are you talking about?  Stem cell research is done on embryos, not a fetus, (I thought we were talking about that) and there is no such thing as "organs" when something is not a person.  If it hasn't been born yet, it is simply not yet a person in Judaism.  It is potential only.    And those are not "organs" they are primitive developing structures which can some day become organs.    Big difference.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Anything that involves dissecting embryos for spare parts is an abomination.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be against embryonic stem cell research yet support the morning after pill. They call me a hypocrite. However i see that stem cell research can go on with alternatives to embryonic stem cells, and the morning after pill is an alternative to abortion, which is much, much worse.

But the question is not whether "there are alternatives" (which are not as useful and have less research potential btw, despite anti-stem-cell lobbyists' propaganda - these people don't understand science and make wild claims), the question is whether it is ethical or not.   That is either yes or no.   In Judaism it is permitted.   I realize that some people have other views, or other restrictions based on their belief systems, but why would a Jew oppose what halacha permits in this scenario?  I'm surprised at this.   (I realize that's not relevant to you, Rubystars, I'm just commenting in general).

But with your position Rubystars, I am also a bit surprised.  In what way are the two things fundamentally different in terms of final result?   In either case you are simply preventing a viable embryo from implanting in the uterine lining of a mother.  In the case of embryonic stem cell research, rather than throwing it in the trash like a morning-after pill would achieve, they are using it instead for some other purpose to help people.    Also, the embryos in question are very different.   With morning-after pill it's an endogenous embryo still within its host that one is basically killing off.   With embryonic stem cell research, they are taking leftover embryos from IVF treatments that were never used, are not currently within their hosts (or were never implanted into hosts) and simply harvesting the cells rather than letting them sit in a freezer until they become non-viable and die on their own.   So where is the ethical dilemma in your opinion?

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

I am against the morning-after pill too.

[The One and Only Mo]

Anything that involves dissecting embryos for spare parts is an abomination.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be against embryonic stem cell research yet support the morning after pill. They call me a hypocrite. However i see that stem cell research can go on with alternatives to embryonic stem cells, and the morning after pill is an alternative to abortion, which is much, much worse.

But the question is not whether "there are alternatives" (which are not as useful and have less research potential btw, despite anti-stem-cell lobbyists' propaganda - these people don't understand science and make wild claims), the question is whether it is ethical or not.   That is either yes or no.   In Judaism it is permitted.   I realize that some people have other views, or other restrictions based on their belief systems, but why would a Jew oppose what halacha permits in this scenario?  I'm surprised at this.   (I realize that's not relevant to you, Rubystars, I'm just commenting in general).

But with your position Rubystars, I am also a bit surprised.  In what way are the two things fundamentally different in terms of final result?   In either case you are simply preventing a viable embryo from implanting in the uterine lining of a mother.  In the case of embryonic stem cell research, rather than throwing it in the trash like a morning-after pill would achieve, they are using it instead for some other purpose to help people.    Also, the embryos in question are very different.   With morning-after pill it's an endogenous embryo still within its host that one is basically killing off.   With embryonic stem cell research, they are taking leftover embryos from IVF treatments that were never used, are not currently within their hosts (or were never implanted into hosts) and simply harvesting the cells rather than letting them sit in a freezer until they become non-viable and die on their own.   So where is the ethical dilemma in your opinion?

You make the most sense. Embryos are there for research.

I'm against morning after and abortion ONLY to stop society from screwing each other all the time. All birth control should be banned (unless people have a marriage certificate) because wasting seed is the same as an abortion (worse halachically). Unmarried people have to know that they can't just have sex and not expect any consequences.

[Dr. Dan]

KWRBT, I was talking out of my butt this morning on this topic and put very little thought into the post, so I apologize for speaking for Gd.

Let me explain what I meant and that what I was saying was flawed anyway, but it could be a good starting point to get an ethical Jewish answer.

In Judaism, abortions are only permitted when the mother's life is in danger.  At all other times it is not permitted.  Some Rabbis will argue that Plan B is permitted in a rape case as long as it is taken immediately.  Plan B, as I'm sure you know, is a medication which prevents a possibly fertilized egg from implanting which can happen anyway even if the medication isn't taken.  But that's neither here nor there.

In the case of an embryo or fetus being removed from a woman who's life would be in danger giving birth to a baby eventually were taking place, and if it was possible, I was thinking that in reality it wouldn't hurt using its stem cells to save lives.  In Judaism, according to some Rabbis, it's permitted, if one gives permission, to give an organ to save a life.  The problem is, does the permission part hold as the same for a fetus or embryo?  Are stem cells of an embryo considered the same as an organ of a person who gives permission to donate it?

Is a potential murderer equivalent to a fetus or embryo that is considered to be a rodef? 

Are we allowed to take organs from a murderer and use it to save another life if there is no permission to do so?  On this thought, I would assume we are not allowed to since once that evil soul leaves the body, we should respect the body/cadaver and bury it.  If I'm correct on this assumption, is the same true with an aborted fetus/embryo?

Technically, stem cells or any cell is different from a whole vital organ.  If a stem cell is removed, my assumption is that another one can grow or replace it, while with an organ it's not the case...I mean a kidney, everyone has two of them, and a liver regenerates, but I'm referring to something like a heart.

Did that make any sense?

From a rodef aborted fetus I would sound like it is ok, but I don't think Gd would like that very much. Its like harvesting organs from a murderer without asking his permission.

What are you talking about?  Stem cell research is done on embryos, not a fetus, (I thought we were talking about that) and there is no such thing as "organs" when something is not a person.  If it hasn't been born yet, it is simply not yet a person in Judaism.  It is potential only.    And those are not "organs" they are primitive developing structures which can some day become organs.    Big difference.

[Dr. Dan]

What are you talking about?  Stem cell research is done on embryos, not a fetus, (I thought we were talking about that) and there is no such thing as "organs" when something is not a person.  If it hasn't been born yet, it is simply not yet a person in Judaism.  It is potential only.    And those are not "organs" they are primitive developing structures which can some day become organs.    Big difference.

The life which is potential might not have equal standing in Judaism to the mother, but it is still life and according to my understanding, should only be eliminated with the mother's life is in danger.  Therefore, before that point, it's still life and shouldn't be made in order to be removed for research, or removed purposely.  The question I was posing was, what if it had to be removed for Jewishly permissable reasons? Can that embryo be used for stem cell research?

[Rubystars]

But the question is not whether "there are alternatives" (which are not as useful and have less research potential btw, despite anti-stem-cell lobbyists' propaganda - these people don't understand science and make wild claims), the question is whether it is ethical or not. 

I don't necessarily believe the claims made by anti-stem cell proponents, although I don't like the idea of using embryonic stem cells on a moral level.

That is either yes or no. 

I don't think we should use them because life should be respected enough not to deliberately take a human embryo and kill it in my opinion. To me this is active destruction of an embryo, rather than the passive destruction of the pill that prevents a pregnancy from beginning (pregnancy begins at implantation).

In Judaism it is permitted.   I realize that some people have other views, or other restrictions based on their belief systems, but why would a Jew oppose what halacha permits in this scenario?  I'm surprised at this.   (I realize that's not relevant to you, Rubystars, I'm just commenting in general).

I don't understand very much about Jewish law but I certainly respect people's right to have a different opinion on this than I do. The Rabbis who determined that this is permitted under halacha know much, much more than I ever will about the relevant Scriptures. I almost feel silly in a way disagreeing with them when I know they are more educated than me. However all I have to say is that to me it doesn't feel right to actively kill a human embryo. The idea makes me feel queasy to be honest. It's not just a feeling of course, but a difference between actively choosing to kill an embryo and allowing it to pass without implanting, passively.

If God really desires for a particular embryo to implant, then the pill does have a certain small failure rate and the possibility is still there, and once the embryo implants, then the morning after pill is not supposed to stop the pregnancy.

But with your position Rubystars, I am also a bit surprised.  In what way are the two things fundamentally different in terms of final result?   In either case you are simply preventing a viable embryo from implanting in the uterine lining of a mother.  In the case of embryonic stem cell research, rather than throwing it in the trash like a morning-after pill would achieve, they are using it instead for some other purpose to help people.    Also, the embryos in question are very different.   With morning-after pill it's an endogenous embryo still within its host that one is basically killing off.   With embryonic stem cell research, they are taking leftover embryos from IVF treatments that were never used, are not currently within their hosts (or were never implanted into hosts) and simply harvesting the cells rather than letting them sit in a freezer until they become non-viable and die on their own.   So where is the ethical dilemma in your opinion?

There are programs available where people can "adopt out" their embryos to be implanted in infertile women before the embryos die in the freezer.  Of course these have a chance of failure, but at least the embryo had a chance. It also has a (very small) chance if someone takes the morning after pill. If you actively kill it, then the embryo has no chance.

The other thing is I see a big, very big difference between allowing a very small embryo to pass through before it can feel any pain or have thoughts or a beating heart, and allowing a half-developed baby to be torn apart and ripped from its mother's womb. If a woman doesn't have an option to prevent a pregnancy from a rapist, she may turn to abortion later, and I see the morning after pill as being much less gruesome and much less morally troublesome when seen as an alternative to an actual abortion.

It's true that in both cases an embryo dies, but at least in the case of the pill, there are two differences, one is that most of the embryos don't implant anyway, in a completely natural situation, and the pill just makes the odds even slimmer. The other is that it does have a very small chance of implanting.

I don't like either thing but as seen as an alternative to abortion, then I think the pill is kinder to all involved than an actual abortion.

[The One and Only Mo]

Homosexuals are bad m'kay.

[Rubystars]

Homosexuals are bad m'kay.

Great now you got me thinking of Mr. Mackay and that weird Janet Reno lookalike character in that one episode. I can't remember if that was the same episode with Dawkins in it or not.

[Ari Ben-Canaan]

A look at the halakcha.

http://www.jewishideas.org/articles/abortion-rhetoric-within-orthodox-judaism-consensus

The Abortion Rhetoric Within Orthodox Judaism: Consensus, Conviction, Covenant
Rabbi Alan Yuter

Rabbi Yuter is the Rabbi of B'nai Israel, the Orthodox synagogue of downtown Baltimore. He is a faculty member in the department of Bible and Jewish Law at the Institute for Traditional Judaism.

The abortion rhetoric provides the hermeneutic key whereby the contemporary contenders to the faith franchise called "Orthodox Judaism" reveal the moral essences of their alternative constructions of religious reality. At stake in this conversation is the meaning of Masorah, a culturally encrusted code word. According to the Judaism of the Rabbinic canon, or book-based Orthodox Judaism, it is the transmitted oral Torah as preserved for the collective of Israel in the public, vetted literature of the rabbis up to and including the Babylonian Talmud. Masorah is however also invoked as the retort of last resort to resolve the often occurring conflicts between the canonical Torah library and the living culture of affiliating Orthodox Jews. While, in theory, the Orthodox Jew consults the canon, the literary trove of which is both necessary and sufficient source of normative value, in practice this trove is mediated by rabbis, known as gedolim, great ones, or hakhmei ha-Mesorah, Masoretic sages, whose divinely inspired intuition is empowered to parse divine intent and to preserve the cohesiveness of culture based Orthodox Judaism.

This study contrasts the legal rhetoric regarding the abortion issue. What does the plain sense of the canonical library actually prescribe? And what is the view of that version of Orthodox Judaism that bases itself on the intuitive consensus of an elite group of rabbis through a kind of "continuous revelation"?

To accomplish this goal, we examine:

1. the apologia and rhetoric of "pro-life" Orthodox Judaism
2. the actual values encoded in the Judaism of the canonical documents regarding [a] fetal life and the grounds for authorizing an abortion
3. the actual position of the Judaism of the canonical documents regarding abortions
4. the self-understandings of the two Orthodox Judaisms that compete with each other, in pre-modern and in modern times

1. The apologia and rhetoric of "pro-life" Orthodox Judaism

This version of Orthodox Judaism reflects the publicly proclaimed consensus of those who are self-authorized, empowered, and emboldened to speak as spokesmen [women have no voice in this Judaism] for Torah. The pronouncements of this dialect of Orthodox culture are apodictic, dogmatic, authoritative and authoritarian. For this Orthodox Judaism, conversation is condemned as disrespectful to G-d because G-d's vicarious spokesmen alone are authorized to speak-because they are intuitively endowed-- on G-d's behalf. Persuasion of peers is for this Orthodox Judaism pointless because those issuing bold, culture conservative apodictic rulings are, by their own account, without peer. According to Rabbi Herschel Schachter's understanding of his teacher, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, great rabbis may rule from intuition or "from the gut," but most rabbis may not even entertain the right to articulate a reasoned opinion. After all, these second tier rabbis do not understand Torah deeply and intimately because they [1] have not been vetted as great rabbis by the clique of great rabbis and [2] these second rate Orthodox rabbis, by dint of their corrosive exposure to non-Jewish and non-ultra-Orthodox culture, are presumably under the influence of un-Jewish heretical ideas, ideologies, and sensibilities. Therefore, in order to be considered to be legitimate Orthodox rabbis, second tier rabbis are required to defer to the pious policies of the truly great rabbis, those untainted by secularity, and forgoing the role of posek [religious authority] and assuming the role of police, who deferentially and piously enforce the policies, positions, and proclamations of the truly authentic great rabbis. To this view, citing relevant sources is insufficient, and otherwise compelling logic is spiritually inadequate. Only those accepted as great rabbis are authorized as Masoretic sages to preserve the ethic, ethos and spirit of authentic Judaism. In this Judaism, authentic Torah opinion, Daas Torah, resides primarily in the charismatic person, rather than in the canonical object, or sacred text. In this Judaism, the sacred Torah serves as the rhetorical resource trove which is sifted, shifted, and manipulated in order to justify the apodictic rulings of the actual and ultimate source of living Torah, the inspired intuition of great rabbis, the actual word of the Lord that applies in contemporary times.

The Judaism "of the canonical documents" is the alternative Orthodox Judaism that challenges the claims of the charisma-led Orthodoxy described above. According to Rabbi Marc Angel, this is the Judaism of the oral Torah applied appropriately to current settings. And according to Prof. Jacob Neusner, this is the Judaism of the Dual, i.e., oral and written Torah, which alone expresses G-d's will as proclaimed at Sinai, in the wilderness sojourn, in the Prophetic writings and Hagiographa, and in the Oral Torah library. Contemporary Orthodox Judaism has undergone change in modernity because it is self-conscious about its religious choice and identity, which is not the case for pre-modern Traditional Jewish religious communities. Modern Orthodoxy's adherents and advocates, this writer included, believe that G-d is revealed in the sacred text as explained persuasively by whoever makes the most reasonable, persuasive, and compelling reading of that canon. Apodictic rulings, declaratory judgments, and ex cathedra decrees are not recognized to be legitimate value statements according to the version of Jewish Orthodoxy that is encoded in the Oral Torah canon. These apodictic rulings may only issue with authority from a Sanhedrin sitting in plenum, but not from post-Talmudic self-selective clerics sitting in clergy conclaves, whose intuition is taken to represent G-d's will.

The charismatic Orthodox Judaism opposes an expanded abortion license by appealing to the sanctity of life and human humility, a code term intended to intimidate ethical initiative, demean the rectitude of the individual moral conscience, and to foster legal inactivity by besmirching and delegitimating those who would dare to revisit classical texts in order to reconsider and perhaps revise practices and policies, based upon a philological reading of the sacred canon. While for the Judaism of the Oral Torah, halakhic discourse rejects mysteries and vague platitudes out of hand, [Dt. 10:28] "pro-life" culture conservative Judaism, representing what it takes to be the moral high ground, with its accompanying legitimating stringency, cannot tolerate a conversation regarding what the canon actually records because with conversation comes the moral demand for accountability.


2. The actual values encoded in the Judaism of the canonical documents regarding [a] fetal life and the grounds for authorizing an abortion

The most relevant Biblical passage informing the abortion controversy is:

When [at least two] men fight and [inadvertently] strike a pregnant woman
and [as a consequence of the blow] the fetuses abort but there is no calamity [i.e. the pregnant woman survives the blow] [the offending culprit] must assuredly be punished as to be mandated by the woman's husband in court. [Ex. 21:22-23]

In this passage, the incident of unintentional feticide is punished by a fine, but the offending culprit is not consigned to a city of refuge, which would be the case were this accidental abortion to be viewed as a homicide [Exodus 21:23]. Therefore, the assault upon the fetus is, according to the Pentateuchal document that every Orthodox Judaism accepts to be the will and word of G-d, the human fetus carries the status of property, but not person.

However, the canonical library of the Oral Torah, the foundation documents of which are also sacred canon for Orthodox Judaism, provides the literary, theological, and legal filter whereby Biblical norms are legally processed and culturally applied. The approaches of our two contending Orthodox Judaisms to this canonical legal filter reveals, en passant, that there are two competing and ideologically incompatible Orthodox Judaisms contending for recruits, recognition, and the collective soul of the Orthodox affiliating community.

The tendentious reading of this passage advanced by pro-life Orthodoxy cites the following Talmudic comment, with its accompanying ideological spin, to be the final, exhaustive, and to its view unquestionable will and word of G-d:

[In the case of] a woman in hard labor [the court mandates] the cutting of the unborn fetus and removing it [from the womb] limb by limb because her [i.e. the mother's] life takes precedence over its [i.e. the fetal] life. [bSan 72a]

According to Rabbi J. David Bleich, only in this case, where the fetus endangers the life of the gestating mother, may an abortion be condoned, and in other cases, i.e., when the gestating mother is not in mortal danger, the abortion procedure is by implication forbidden. [Contemporary Halachic Problems, New York, 1977, 327) But the Talmudic context cited here only refers to a legally mandated abortion. Philologically parsed, this canonical statement prescribes that in a case in which the maternal life, i.e., a legally defined person carrying moral rights, is endangered by a life threatening fetus, which prior to birth is considered to be not a person but property, Oral Torah law mandates the destruction of the fetus, which is property, in order to spare the actual living human person, the gestating mother. The claim, advanced by R. Bleich and others, that an abortion is in fact forbidden by statutory implication, reflects the a priori ideology of the exegete but neither the philological sense of the statute nor the actual norm encoded in that statute. Maimonides astutely and precisely ruled [Laws of the Murderer and Life Preservation 1:9] that this case, when the gestating mother is herself endangered by the fetus she carries, is akin [but not identical] to that of the pursuer, when it appears that one person pursues another person with apparent intention to commit rape or murder, a bystander may take the requisite vigilante action to stop the pursuer, even by killing the presumptive culprit, should circumstances so require.

3. The actual position of the Judaism of the canonical documents

According to what Orthodox Jewish believers, committed to the Written Law as filtered by the Oral Law, are supposed to maintain, the penalty for fetal destruction is a fine, indicating that in Israel's canon, feticide is a tort, not a crime, an assault upon property, not person. The identical definition recorded in Israel's sacred canon also appears in Hammurabi's code. [CH 210, ANET 17-19] The only, but critical, difference between the ethic of the Torah and the ethos of Hammurabi's code is that for the latter, human and property worth inhabit the same moral universe, while for the Torah ethic the human person carries moral rights because s/he carries the image of G-d and may not be reduced to or treated as property.

Pro-life Orthodox Judaism ignores the astonishing fact that the religiously canonical bArakhin 7a-b actually fills the gap of the wrongly and ideologically imputed silence of bSanhedrin 72a. The claim that non-therapeutic abortions must be halakhically forbidden is based [or biased] upon an ideological reading of a passage that only and explicitly deals with a mandated abortion. In bArakhin 7a-b, a woman about to be executed by the court is, if pregnant, aborted, [a] even though the biological father has property rights to the unborn, because the court is empowered to confiscate property, in this case, the fetus for which there is a paternal claim of property concern, and the grounds for taking this action, the destruction of the fetus, is the shame that the condemned woman would endure if executed while pregnant. Therefore, the condemned woman's shame provides sufficient warrant to confiscate what Jewish law in its canonical statement defines as property. We have in this passage an explicit warrant for discretionary abortion.

In search of an anti-abortion argument, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein ["Abortion: a Halakhic Perspective," Tradition 25 (Summer 1991), 4] contends that [a] since the Israelite law must be more rigorous for an Israelite than non-Israelite, [bHullin 33a], and a non-Israelite is executed for the crime of feticide, [ bSan 57a] , R. Lichtenstein concludes syllogistically, abortion "must" be forbidden to Jews by implication because it is forbidden explicitly to non-Jews. Like R. Bleich, R. Lichtenstein is ideologically predisposed to justify a restrictive abortion ruling and not to read the canon as an objective text scholar applying philological controls, going where the data leads, being disinterested in the resultant findings, and to use R. Bleich's very felicitous idiom, letting "the chips fall where they may." R. Lichtenstein's very clever construction is however parried by the legal fact that non-Israelites suffer execution for assaults on property, while Israelites are not so sanctioned. Thus, the claims that Israelite law "must" be stricter than other legal systems and that only therapeutic abortions are by implication licit, must be addressed philologically, not ideologically. Therefore, in its canonical version, Orthodox Judaism requires an abortion when there is a danger to human life, and considers shame to be a ground to authorize other, i.e., discretionary abortions. Were Jewish law to outlaw abortions undertaken to avoid shame, then the bArakhin 7a-b passage would not appear in the Talmudic canon. In the case of a woman pregnant with an illegitimate fetus, R. Yair Bacharch [Havot Yair 31] was restrictive on public policy grounds, conceding that a lenient ruling might be justified if the letter of the law were the only relevant consideration. Jewish law does allow for policy strictures, but not for ideologically driven misrepresentations of the evidence, here evidence of the popular refusal to deal with or address the implications of the bArakhin 7a-b evidence. Furthermore, the Lichtensteinian position, that stricture is per se a quality of Torah ethic, while finding roots in Tosafot, does not seem to reflect the religion of sacred canon. After all, Nadab and Abihu were both extra strict and extra wrong. [Leviticus 10:1-7]

4. The self-understandings of the two Orthodox Judaisms that compete with each other, in pre-modern and in modern times

While taken in amazement with the creative, innovative, and dazzling apologias for the pro-life position, argued brilliantly by Rabbis Bleich and Lichtenstein, both nevertheless seem to arrive at their respective conclusions prior to their investigation of the data. Neither rabbi advocates a strict construction reading of the canonical law but both appeal to "morality," derived from culture bias, a self-defined "spirit of the law," and what appears to be culture conservative subjective taste. R. Lichtenstein also suggests that there is a normative morality that is beyond the halakha that is nevertheless binding. Pro-life culture traditionalist Orthodox rabbis read the canonical documents as if their intuitions reflect G-d's intentions, and accordingly read the sacred canon selectively, finding in the Torah that ethic which they are programmed, conditioned, and expected to find, and will ignore and, in the case of bArakhin 7a-b, suppress facts, however canonical those facts may be, when those facts fly in the face of deeply revered sensibilities, self-evident intuition, and consensus social policy. G-d transmitted a textual Torah book to all Israel but did not transmit a secret, private, hidden interpretation code entrusted only to a special self-select elite. By allowing the book/text of the Jewish sacred canon to be superseded by policy driven posekim, albeit with the best of intentions and moral instincts, pro-life Orthodox Judaism de jure claims that G-d's Torah, while divine and from Heaven, is transferred to their human hands and authority and is no longer in Heaven. According to the Judaism of the Oral Torah, only the Great Sanhedrin is invested with this power, and without this legislative/judicial institution, Torah is entrusted to all Israel and is read with literary and historical tools and with a public conversation, not with intuitive explanations bereft of review, dialogue, and persuasion.


The abortion debate has a long history in Jewish law. One Tosafist view allows abortion, and another does not, arguing that Judaism cannot be less strict than non-Jewish religions. The restrictive view is often cited, the lenient view is not. While to his abiding moral credit, Rabbi Feinstein unflinchingly cited and addressed the lenient Tosafist view, he argued from conjecture and without a shred of evidence that the lenient view must be rejected because the Tosafist text is corrupt. Maimonides argues that the claim, "Judaism must be stricter than other religions," is inadmissible, that Judaism alone defines Judaism, and we do not spin texts in order to find what we wish to find. [Iggeret ha-Shemad] So for Maimonides, [1] Torah religion is about obeying G-d's law and not being reflexively strict, and we argue that [2] before one claims that a given text should be discarded because it is corrupt, that corruption must be identified and defined, and not merely proclaimed because the textual content conflicts with the interpreter's positions.

The pro-life Orthodox culture conservatives are what Professor Jeffery Gurock calls modernity "resisters," while the scientific modern Orthodox who are committed to a philological parsing of the canon, seek to "accommodate" modernity. For the former, Halakha is not primarily what the Jew must do, it is the lomdus/conceptualism that the rabbinic elite imposes upon the canon so that religious culture not change, the cohesiveness of Orthodox society not become unglued, and its leadership status not be challenged. But lomdus, or "learningness," is a term unattested in Israel's canonical library; it is an invented culture construct created to empower an exclusive rabbinic elite to monopolize the interpretive access to the canon in order to make theologically correct normative judgments. This elite is unabashedly and passionately opposed to the philological reading of the canon because, in the words of the late R. Ahron Soloveichik, academic, philological readings of the canon undermine "the sanctity of Torah." To this view, allowing access to parse the divine word is a recipe for theological, communal, and sectarian anarchy.

Ironically, ultra-Orthodoxy denies the great rabbi credentials to modern Orthodox rabbinic elite rabbis because they are too "modern." When religious legitimacy is political but not exegetical, it is power and not persuasion that invests ideas that are politically correct with religious valence, as these ideas are proclaimed to be theologically correct. Thus, being a "great rabbi" is determined not only by expertise and scholarship, but by politics, culture taste, and social policy. Thus, for Haredi Judaism, Rabbis Lichtenstein and Joseph Soloveitchik cannot be great rabbis because [a] they are Zionists and earned secular doctorates in English and Philosophy, respectively. Furthermore, the reading presented here reflects the influence of Responsa Piskei Ben Zion Uzziel 52, that has been ignored but not refuted by the rabbinic consensus.

The Arakhin passage quoted above is in culture conservative Orthodox circles vocalized "erkhin." [sic] According to Hebrew grammar, the singular erekh, value, in the plural becomes arakhin, not erkhin. And the form erkhin is also grammatically improper because were the form to exist-which it does not-it would be vocalized erkin, with a "k". In order to condition its affiliating community not to read Israel's sacred canon philologically, like the early authorities, i.e., the rishonim, and in our time, R. Uzziel, there may be no applied study of grammar, syntax, semantics, or hermeneutics in culture conservative, pro-life, modernity resisting Orthodoxy. By obfuscating the tradition/masora of canonically correct Hebrew, the Tradition of canonical text is replaced with and is superseded by the "tradition" of culture conservatives who are singularly endowed to divine G-d's true intentions.


The other Orthodoxy, populated by the militant moderates of Modern Orthodoxy, are committed to philology because this Orthodoxy pines to hear and obey the actual voice of the living G-d as revealed in the Torah's living words. G-d did not entrust the Torah to any sacred synod of Torah sages, but to the collective of Israel, Morasha kehillat Ya'akob. Maimonides ruled not based on human charisma, but the best reasoning based upon the best rendering of the canonical reading. Culture conservative modernity- resisting Orthodoxy prizes conformity in practice, dress, thought and attitude; the moderate militants of Modern Orthodoxy culture accommodators believe that G-d's unchanging principles apply to ever changing social realities. The culture conservative Orthodox looks to the sociology of the community and is therefore ironically similar to the Reconstructionist approach, which claims that ultimate religious normativity is grounded in social rather than in theological and covenantal concerns.

R. Ya'ir Bachrach [Responsum 31] ruled restrictively regarding the termination of a fetus conceived in adultery on policy grounds. Policy claims must persuade but may not intimidate. They certainly may not claim that their voice is G-d's voice. G-d gave the Torah to "us," the collective called Israel, not to an elite, save the Great Sanhedrin; not to a clique, however convinced it may be by its self- selecting consensus, and not by partisans of any party. Like the statutes/mishpatim that are rational and are intended to persuade, we welcome conversation, not coercion, reason, not reproach, and ideas, not ideology.

The abortion debate within Orthodox Judaism reveals that there are two contenders for the mantle of Orthodoxy. The modernists read the sacred canon and its law literally, the Biblical and rabbinic narratives figuratively, and find G-d in the sacred text. Orthodoxy's culture conservatives read the law figuratively and the narratives literally so that critical thinking be suppressed, so that G-d's presence is transferred from the holy text to the holy person. The modernists read texts critically because they want to know how to think; Orthodoxy's anti-modernists read their agenda into the text because [1] the Jew is taught what to think and [2] challenging those who tell others what to think is akin to challenging G-d. Which version of Orthodoxy do you, the reader, believe to be the true seeker of G-d's will?

[The One and Only Mo]

Homosexuals are bad m'kay.

Great now you got me thinking of Mr. Mackay and that weird Janet Reno lookalike character in that one episode. I can't remember if that was the same episode with Dawkins in it or not.

LOL, finally, somebody got my SP reference, lol!!!!!!

[Rubystars]

Unfortunately I can say I've watched almost every episode