By Teresa Konopka
SAN DIEGO — Recently I went to a Jewish young professionals event where the discussion centered around taboo topics. When abortion came up, several people gave their views on the matter. True to the adage “two Jews, three opinions,” there were comments from both sides of the argument. From pro-life to pro-choice, everyone had something to say. The discussion was very thought-provoking and even challenged my own beliefs. Still going back and forth in my head about the subject, I decided to see what the Hebrew Bible had to say on the matter.
In the Tanakh, prophets Jeremiah and Job undergo immense suffering. In borderline suicidal episodes, they ask G-d why He even let them be born.
“Oh, that I had died in my mother’s womb, that her body had been my grave! Why was I ever born? My entire life has been filled with trouble, sorrow, and shame.” (Jeremiah 20)
“Curse that day for failing to shut my mother’s womb, for letting me be born to see all this trouble. Why wasn’t I born dead? Why didn’t I die as I came from the womb? Why, then, did you deliver me from my mother’s womb? Why didn’t you let me die at birth? It would be as though I had never existed, going directly from the womb to the grave.” (Job 3)
In his famous existential dirge, King Solomon goes so far as to say that those who don’t enjoy life would have been better off never existing.
“A man might have a hundred children and live to be very old. But if he finds no satisfaction in life and doesn’t even get a decent burial, it would have been better for him to be born dead. His birth would have been meaningless, and he would have ended in darkness. He wouldn’t even have had a name, and he would never have seen the sun or known of its existence. Yet he would have had more peace than in growing up to be an unhappy man.” (Ecclesiastes 6)
Contrasting the doom-and-gloom verses above, the Tanakh offers inspiring statements about G-d handcrafting individuals in the womb.
“For G-d created both me and my servants. He created us both in the womb.” (Job 31)
“Thus says HaShem who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you. Fear not, O Jacob my servant.” (Isaiah 44)
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.” (Psalm 139)
Prophets Jeremiah and Isiah take the sentiment of G-d creating people a step further. They claim that G-d actually appoints people to special destinies and missions in life before they even are born.
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1)
“And now HaShem speaks—the one who formed me in my mother’s womb to be his servant, who commissioned me to bring Israel back to him.” (Isaiah 49)
With the various excerpts from the Tanakh, one can easily justify either a pro-life or pro-choice position. On the one hand, life can be so miserable that it is better to not be born. On the other hand, G-d forms us in the womb for a unique purpose. To complicate matters further, the Torah advises on a perplexing scenario involving a woman who miscarries because she is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she miscarries. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.” (Exodus 21)
Interestingly, the man who causes the miscarriage has to pay not what the mother demands but rather what the father demands. In the patriarchal society that was Bible times, the unborn child appears to belong to the man, not the woman. This aligns both with the infamous story of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac (Genesis 22) and the commandment for fathers to financially redeem their firstborn for religious purposes (Numbers 18). While the feminists of today would attest that any unborn child belongs to the mother, there was a hierarchy in ancient Mesopotamia. Children (born and unborn) firstly belonged to the father and secondly belonged to either the birth mother or the owner of the birth mother. In the case of Leah and Rachel, both offered up their maidservants as concubines so that they themselves—not their concubines—would have a family (Genesis 30).
The Hebrew Bible is no stranger to dying and does not shy away from death. As evidenced in our own Torah, some people lose their lives merely as collateral damage to events outside their control. Take for instance the notorious Death of the Firstborn story (Exodus 12). As awful as the Egyptian taskmasters may have been, their children (many just babies) were innocent and—many would argue—undeserving of death.
Nevertheless, a divine sacrifice was made for what a religious person can only hope amounted to a greater good. The Egyptian firstborn children had no say in what parents they were born to and whether they would live or die. Had Pharaoh’s firstborn been born to a Jewish family instead, he may very well have survived. To some degree, G-d decides the fate of us all by choosing when, where, and to whom we are born (all of which we have no say in).
Having no control over one’s life or death is especially true in war. Every life lost in war is a sacrifice. For the righteous armies, men sacrifice their lives to preserve freedom and justice. For the wicked armies, men’s lives are sacrificed in the sense that they are born into nations where they are forced to fight for injustices. When it comes to being drafted for war, men oftentimes have no choice but to become soldiers. This was even more so the case in ancient times when those who refused to join their king’s army would be killed on the spot.
In light of this, I’ve come to the conclusion that any baby aborted is a sacrifice. Whether due to medical or psychological factors, some women choose abortions to save themselves. This is no different than soldiers being forced to sacrifice their lives in war. If and when a mother makes the difficult decision to abort her unborn baby, it should be considered with the utmost respect for that life lost and not merely as the disposal of something unwanted. While not always the case, sometimes abortion is discussed callously with little to no regard for the fetus.
“They will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.” (Isaiah 13)
“On the day you were born, no one cared about you. Your umbilical cord was not cut, and you were never washed, rubbed with salt, and wrapped in cloth. No one had the slightest interest in you; no one pitied you or cared for you. On the day you were born, you were unwanted, dumped in a field and left to die.” (Ezekiel 16)
In my humble opinion, the divide between the pro-life and pro-choice movements will only narrow when abortions are regarded with more reverence. When aborted babies are publicly memorialized like soldiers of war and acknowledged as the sacrifices they are, then and only then will there be more room for dialogue between the two sides. Isaiah puts it so eloquently when he says:
“I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.” (Isaiah 44)
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Teresa Konopka is a freelance writer based in San Diego. She may be contacted via teresa.konopka@sdjewishworld.com