What (If Anything) Counts as a Legitimate Reason for Abortion?
Another implication of Jewish/Catholic differences on the question of when “life” begins has to do with what might qualify as a legitimate reason for an abortion. There is agreement among even the most observant Jews that if a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, then the right thing to do is to kill the fetus to save the mother. Indeed, there is a passage in the Talmud that says that if a woman is in labor (i.e., at the very end of her pregnancy) and her life is in danger, then the proper course of action is to dismember the fetus limb from limb if necessary to prevent the mother’s death. On the other hand, if most of the baby has already emerged, then abortion is prohibited, because we cannot favor one life (that of the mother) over another life (that of the baby). Different thinkers have drawn quite divergent lessons from this Talmudic passage. Some have concluded that because the passage discusses a pregnant woman whose life is in danger, it follows that the only legitimate ground f
