A rabbi who counseled pregnant women and helped them get abortions explained why he supported abortion:
“It’s not whether the fetus is alive. The question is, in Jewish law, as it is concerning Arabs who want to kill Jews. The Talmud says if a person is coming to kill you, get up earlier and kill him first.
There is the concept of the chaser and that chasee, the person who is coming to harm you and the person who is going to be harmed…
The fetus is endangering the life of the mother. Until the fetus’s head emerges intact, or the body emerges, the fetus is coming to kill the mother. You can kill it at any stage to save the life of the mother.
The question in Jewish law is what constitutes threatening the life of the mother. I believe emotional health is threatening the life.”
He was a Conservative Rabbi who worked with the Clergy Consultation Service.
Doris Andrea Dirks, Patricia A Relf To Offer Compassion: A History of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (Madison, Wisconsin: University Of Wisconsin Press, 2017) 109 – 110
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