This Week's Torah Portion: Roe v. Wade 38th Anniversary and Mishpatim

     It is always amazing to me how the weekly-scheduled Torah portion always has something terribly insightful and timely to say about the most important events of the week.
     TODAY is no different as we mark both the 38th anniversary of the decision of Roe v. Wade, which protects a woman's right to choose in most abortion cases, and the reading of the sixth Torah portion in the Book of Exodus, called Mishpatim.
     For those newly-elected to the House of Represenatives who have vowed, on religious grounds, to roll back Roe v. Wade, recommend them to Exodus 21:22-23:
     When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on the reckoning.
     The passsage is fundamental in the abortion debate because if the Bible considered the fetus to be a full person with full rights, then a monetary fine would have been impossible.  Rather, the person who caused the pregnant woman to miscarry would be guilty of murder.  The stress on the fine as the appropriate compensation for this deed underscores the fact that while inside the mother, the fetus is a part of the mother, just as the leg, arm or eyes if insured, would also be part of the mother.  Those that argue that the fetus is an independent being with full rights which supercede those of the mother, cannot use the Bible for support.
      That is NOT to say that Judaism does not value the potential of the fetus to become a full person.  But in couseling a pregnant mother who is considering aborting the fetus, the rabbi would consider the total health of the mother, both physical as well as psychological, in bringing the fetus to term.  Because Protestant ministers and Catholic priests could see this same issue with completely different theological lenses, it incumbant upon members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate NOT to impose their own theological views on this issue.  On this issue, the "will of the people" as referenced in today's heated news clips must not be with the November 2010 election results but rather with the U.S. Constitution, which in the First Ammendment, forbids the establishment of one religion over another.  Best to leave abortion decisions with the theologians to decide with their congregants, on a case-by-case basis, within churches, synagogues and mosques, not with the politicans on Capitol Hill.