The heartbeat law is Torah

At the end of last month, one Sarah Marian Seltzer poasted: Just a friendly reminder that banning abortion violates Jewish women’s ability to practice our religion. Rabbiah Megan Doherty had explained how, back in February, on behalf of National Council of Jewish Women which apparently does a "Repro Shabbat". Another Rabbi, Danny Horowitz, got in on it, also in February and also for NCJW. I suspect Seltzer is NCJW too; her only mistake was poasting on her own and on Twitter.

Seltzer un-poasted her tweet swiftly, but I haven't asked whether anything had changed her mind. If she is open to having her mind changed, here comes Roger Pearse. TL;DR - the Heartbeat Law currently active in the state of Texas is Torah. It is binding upon Jews perhaps even more than upon Christians (who really only get in on it with the Didache) and upon Muslims (who historically have got their Torah second-hand, through the Israiliyat and the sunna). Opposing this law is to offend G-d.

The key here is Exodus 21:22-25, which (on its face) covers only accidental miscarriage; which as usual doesn't come with its own commentary. What Exodus comes with, is a vague understanding of "harm". The legal question hinges on two sorts of miscarriage: one without harm, one with. A previous blog has covered that in of itself; we're here to discuss the commentary as it arose under the Hellenists.

NCJW would have us, and (unforgiveably) fellow Jews, believe that the harm is to the mother alone. That is not what Jews in antiquity read in this. Here was no real argument on what constituted harm to the woman, that being handled in other halakhot. Therefore, granted was no harm to the woman beyond the temporary discomfort of shedding the Products Of Conception (per Unplanned). These Jews argued instead on at what point does harm mean something to the foetus, and to the community - indeed to all humanity.

This argument, we can assume, came to the Seventy in Alexandria. Their translation didn't even talk harm, but whether the child came forth fully formed. This was picked up by Philo in his Laws. But hey - that's Alexandria, and today's Jews don't own an Alexandrine Talmud. Sure. But they do own a Jerusalem Talmud, from the Pharisees of Roman Judaea; and by happenstance we own the Judaean Pharisaic perspective - in Josephus. Josephus comments upon the Masoretic Text, that "harm" here means having diminished the multitude by the destruction of what was in her womb.

Also of interest is a legal apodictic formula floating in three two parallel pericopae. This is in purest form, I think, in the Sentences ascribed to one Phocylides, vv. 184-5: 184 A woman should not destroy an unborn babe in the womb, 185 nor after bearing it should she cast it out as prey for dogs and vultures. Josephus paraphrases this to Apion: The law moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring: and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten; or to destroy it afterward., adding that this counts as murder and (again) having diminished humankind. In the second Sibylline Oracle, God consigns all who caused / Abortions, and all who their offspring cast / Unlawfully away to hell. [WARNING 9/19: Although that Sibyl is derivative of the Sentences and accepted by Catholics and Protestants as one of ours.]

I don't hear that these three Josephus and the Sentences depended upon one another. I think there was a catechism, as it were, taught to all young Jews in the beth ha-midrash, before Talmud and parallel to Mishnah / Tosefta.

To sum up, all we're arguing over is what counts as being fully formed, such that losing the foetus inflicts harm, both upon the foetus (now a baby!) and upon the rest of us. If you as a "pro-choice" advocate don't think a functioning heart counts, that's where you join the conversation. Horowitz did not join this conversation and, frankly, creeps me out. Doherty sort-of did... in agreement with Texas as far as the first forty days which don't count. Afterward? More bluster and name-calling.

Presently I consider the National Council of Jewish Women a shande (at best) who, by speaking badly for Jews, do not speak for Jews. The rabbis involved approach heresy.