Shalom and thank you for your question! You wish to know where abortion is referred to in the Torah.
Abortion is an act of killing.
In the book of Genesis you will find that G-d gave Noah seven laws. These laws were designated for the entire human race to live by. ‘To live by,’ because the Torah also states that we should LIVE by its statutes. The emphasis is on life.
The seven laws are in essence:
1. To acknowledge the One G-d.
2. Not to curse G-d, the Creator.
3 Not to murder.
4. Not to eat the limb (or part) of a living animal.
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to commit adultery or incest.
7. To establish courts of law and justice.
Truthfully all these laws are interconnected. If we acknowledge G-d, what we are doing is acknowledging that there is something or someone higher than our own rationale, and then our whole life looks different…
We might have logical reasons why ending someone’s life might make sense.
I once read about a woman who was in a coma. Her husband was one of the doctors on her medical team. While in her coma she heard him telling the team that they could detatch the life support machines. She couldn’t react. She surprised them however by recovering, whereupon she divorced her husband.
The prohibition against killing is also in the Ten Commandments.
What if the mother’s life is in danger? In such a case, Jewish law gives the mother’s life precedence.
This is because the embryo develops in stages. It is not until the baby’s head has been born that the baby achieves the status of a live person completely. When the embryo endangers the mother’s life, it has the legal status of a pursuer, about whom it is written that if someone comes to kill you, you shall rise up and kill him first.
This ‘endangering’ of life is not at all a black and white thing. Each case must be assessed by competent Rabbis in contact with competent doctors. A mother’s emotional health is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration, (again by competent authorities,) no less than other health factors.
There may be additional circumstances where abortion might be sanctioned for the well-being of the mother. Only a competent Rabbi can decide this in conjunction with competent medical advice.
There is an interesting Jewish law.
What happens if people living in a city are threatened by an enemy that they will all be killed unless they give over a particular individual to the said enemy?
The law is that there’s no math involved here. Life equals life. One person’s life cannot be bartered for others. It doesn’t matter either if the person was popular or not… The city does not hand over the individual.
This is one of the cases that shows how cherished is the life of each individual. The unborn individual also deserves his/her
chance to live.
There are many examples of how the Torah values life, and teaches us not to take it lightly.
I hope this answers your question.
We are at a point in history where the process of ‘turning swords into ploughshares’ has already begun. We hope that mankind will continue to seek values of peace and respect for life, until the world is completely rectified!
