ABORTION AND THE HALAKHIC CONVERSATION

most closely conforms to the ultimate purposes of the halakhah as that community understands them.’ Finally, there will be issues that remain profoundly controversial, even after extensive halakhic analysis. The community will be divided over which possible interpretation is the best one, because each interpretation expresses a plausible reading and/or a legitimate religious end. In this last case, the conversational model will reject any attempt to discard one of these possibilities through some"scientific method" of halakhic decision."” In the rhetorical discipline that is law and halakhah, the absence of general persuasion means that all of the realistically potential interpretations of the texts have a claim to legitimacy. Moreover, each one of them represents a perspective that the halakhah as a whole ought to consider, an interpretive possibility that it ignores at significant cost to the overall integrity of Jewish law.

The ruling on any particular question of halakhah is the result of a conversation conducted by the community among these legitimate interpretations. The conclusions of each conversation may vary over time and place and even within the same community. But so long as they are informed by the conversational model, so long as they aim at rendering a persuasive argument based upon the halakhic tradition, each conclusion stakes a legitimate and serious claim to halakhic validity.

On the abortion issue, the persistence of the comparatively-lenient "Rashi" position alongside the comparatively stringent"Rambam " viewpoint is evidence of just such a profound and enduring controversy. We have seen that some halakhists are persuaded that one or the other ruling is correct. We have also seen that others are prepared to invoke(or concoct) a decision­making method that makes the dispute disappear artificially. The halakhic community that adopts the conversational model, however, can live quite well within the boundaries of this mahloget. Accepting both positions as legitimate interpretations of Jewish law, it will allow both to inform the ultimate decision as to the circumstances under which abortion is warranted. Rambam , to begin with, must have his say. To speak of the justification of abortion on grounds of"pursuit" is to remind ourselves that abortion cannot be permitted for any

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