Selected Reform Responsa 215

There is a modern, scientific analysis of the law in this matter by Aptowitzer, in the Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, volume 15, pp. 83ff. However, it is rather remarkable that the whole question of abortion is not discussed very much in actual cases in the traditional law. As a matter of fact, I found at first only three responsa which discuss it fully. There are others which I found later. The first responsum is by a great authority, Yair Chaim Bachrach, of Worms, 17th century. In his responsum(Havat Ya-ir,#31) he was asked the following question: A married woman confessed to adultery, and, finding herself pregnant, asked for an abortion. Bachrach was asked whether it is permissible by Jewish law to do so. He discusses most of the material that I have mentioned above, and at first says that it would seem that a fetus is not really a nefesh and it might be permitted to destroy it, except that this would encourage immorality. But he continues, from the discussion of the 7osafot in Hulin, that a Jew is not permitted(even though he would not be convicted) to destroy a fetus, that it is forbidden for him to do so.

Yet in the next century the opposite opinion is voiced, and also by a great authority, namely Jacob Emden (She-elat Ya-aveiz 1, 43). He is asked concerning a pregnant adulteress whether she may have an abortion. He decides affirmatively, on the rather curious ground that if we were still under our Sanhedrin and could inflict capital punishment, such a woman would be condemned to death and her child would die with her anyhow. Then he adds boldly(though with some misgivings) that perhaps we may destroy a fetus even to save a mother excessive physical pain.

A much more thorough affirmative opinion is given by Ben Zion Uziel , the late Sephardic Chief Rabbi (Mishpetei Uzi-el 111, 46 and 47). He concludes, after a general analysis of the subject, that an unborn fetus is actually not a nefesh at all and has no independent life. It is part of its mother, and just as a person may sacrifice a limb to be cured of a worse sickness, so may this fetus be destroyed for the mother's benefit. Of course, he reckons with the statement of the