New York – Dr. George Tiller was murdered, it seems, because he performed abortions. Those who defend such actions justify them by claiming that it is entirely appropriate to kill a person in order to prevent their killing others. Are they right?
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It’s important to ask this question, upsetting as it may be, because the fundamental claim (no pun intended) made in defense of Dr. Tiller’s murderer does follow a certain logic, which if correct, might justify the actions of his actions. They claim that killing Tiller saves many lives and is therefore justifiable.
According to Jewish law, the principle which they argue is, in fact correct. It’s called the law of the rodef, or pursuer. Based on a rule found in Exodus 22 and explained by the Babylonian Talmud on page 73a, this law actually demands that one preempt a murderer by killing them before they commit their crime. So again, one might come to the conclusion that the events in Kansas actually have the biblical and religious grounding that supporters of accused murdered, Scott Roeder, claim. They are wrong, at least from the perspective of Jewish law.
Under no circumstances is a fetus considered a human life, according to Jewish law. Ironically, Maimonides, calling a fetus a rodef, uses this law to explain why a baby must be aborted if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life. While Jewish law is no fan of abortion, and does not sanction abortion on demand under all circumstances, it is never murder.
Now, I have no expectation or desire to see Jewish law become the law of the land. Nor do I expect to convince radical Christian murderers to change their ways because of a Jewish reading of scripture. But I think that all of us who want to see Dr. Tiller’s murderer prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and even more importantly, bring about an end to such murders, consider the claims made by the murderers. We must, because actually our views are ultimately not so different. Yes, I really mean that.
If we truly believed that abortions were murder, and had the ability to stop someone from performing them, would we not be justified in using all available means to do so? Would we not want someone to do just that if a person was heading off to kill one of our kids?
So how would you respond to someone who genuinely believes that is the case in this case? What arguments can be used to dissuade the future murderers from following a path to what they imagine to be a justifiable homicide and most of us know to be murder?
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV, he is the creator of the popular series, Building Bridges, airing on Bridges TV, and the co-host of the weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula.
After all, according to this, the mother is the murderer, not the doctor, because we pasken ‘shlichoy shell adam kemoisoy’ so the doctor is merely a tool,another question? Is a jewish person mechiyav to kill a rodef when the nirdaf is not jewish?
I do not agree with killing people nor do i agree with killing innocent little babies. These babies were not old enough to talk and say let me live. I am tired of people calling them fetuses, they are not fetuses they are babies. Stop trying to give excuses to kill little babies by calling it a fetus i am sick and tired of it. Do i mourn that a murderer was killed who happened to have a Medical license absolutely not.
You are never chayav to kill a rodef unless you have no other option. Read the actual halacha, don’t just quote something you heard you heard once and pretend it’s torah mi sinai. Ignorant twit.
shlichoy shell adam kemoisoy does not work for murder
i think the halacha is that a ben noah is not allowed to do an abortion. any law a ben noah breaks makes him liable the death penalty . so technically one could kill him. It is too bad the people in Israel don’t rise up against the doctors who do abortions here. in usa some people have guts. i am not condoning killing but at least do we have to give these doctors our business….
A point that was left out here is that by and large, this doctor was taking care of the really tragic cases, where the mother was in danger or had been R”L raped, or the fetus was dying and endangering the mother, but laws in the mothers’ home states wouldn’t let their own doctors do anything about it.
In Judaism there is a din of a nefel, that’s a baby who is less then 30 days old, which is a sofek if it will survive. Someone who kills that baby does not under Jewish law get the death penalty. It sure is considered retzicha but not the same as killing a non nefel; and a fetus has even less standing then a nefel.
I’ve always wondered why Christian anti-abortionists think that they are correct under Jewish law. According to them if only one can survive then maybe the baby should survive instead of the mother. While Judaism is very strong against abortion, it does not think alike with Christians on this issue. The only thing that they have in common is that abortion is wrong; from there they go in different directions.
I’m sorry, but the mother cannot be the “murderer” since “eyn shlicho le dvar aveyra”. It may be wrong, but there’s no application of rodef. Honestly, though, I think the murderer would not listen to any kind of logical argument, however commonly religious. He was simply a madman.
This so called Rabbi paskened “shelo k’halacha”. There is two dinim -abortion by goyim & abortion by Yidden. A goy who performs an abortion is chayav meesah. A yid -it’s just hezek. Acc. to the torah this Doctor is indeed a Rodef if he is a goy instead of a yid. I’m surprised at VIN that they expressed his view, without asking a shailah!
I am sure that the halacha is that outside of a Beis Din, we are not allowed to kill an abortionist, the writer of this article is also wrong that abortion is not a form of murder. There is a Teshuva in Igros Moshe where R’ Moshe Feinstein ZT’L says that someone who performs an abortion commits the aveira of “Lo Sirtzach”.
The bottom line is that he is a murderer, the headline should be “Murderer Gets Killed”.
The salient question is if killing the rodef stops the killing. If it doesn’t, it is not permitted. And it is hard to say that this will stop murders. If anything, it makes the cause more sympathetic and will cause more of them.
I don’t understand this article. Abortion is murder. How can you say it isn’t? I’m talking about a regular abortion, not one performed to save the mother’s life, which we all know is permitted. An abortion at say, 6 months pregnancy, is absolute murder. A 6 month old “fetus” – if born – would survive.
i know because my niece was born 3 months premature.
So again I say, I don’t understand this article. Why do you not print the author’s name?
Abortion is totally forbidden even before the period of formation, which takes place 40 days from conception. The process of conception and pregnancy corresponds in Kabbalah to the three lower Divine worlds. Conception corresponds to the world of Creation. The 40-day period from conception corresponds to the world of Formation. Birth takes place after the subsequent period, which corresponds to the world of Action.
Early Kabbalah refers to three crucial moments in pregnancy: The moment of conception, the moment of formation and the moment of birth, which is the moment of the full development of the fetus in the womb. In Hebrew this moment is called Asiyah. It also means “completed being.” The fetus is complete and now can be born into the world and continue to grow.
Above these three worlds, the union of the father and mother corresponds to the world of Atzilut, which is the level of Divine Consciousness, total and absolute unity. This gives birth to the three lower worlds. The union is expressive of Divine union. If the seed is properly conceived, then the Divine process of progeneration is taking place. It is absolutely forbidden to destroy this Divine process that actually begins from the moment of conception. This is the secret of creation, as it were, ex nihilo.
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg
Inner.org
brad hirshfield believes that gay marriage may be sanctioned by the torah (pg. 143 in his book). he kneeled with a group of muslims praying in a mosque (ibid. pg. 150). i therefore think that his spokemanship on behalf of Judaism may be questionable.
“Those who defend such actions justify them by claiming that it is entirely appropriate to kill a person in order to prevent their killing others.”
Who has come out to defend such actions?
Has anyone else here actually been privy to a real posek answering a real shilah regarding abortion? I have. And the posek was far more meikel than I would ever have imagined. The halachah is not according to the Christian fundamentalists. (It isn’t according to the pro-Choice Protestant churches either.)
And while non Jews, unlike Jews, are potentially subject to a death penalty for an abortion, the gemara in Sanhedrin rules that there is nothing prohibited to a Ben Noach that is permitted to a Jew, so the laws regarding abortion would be the same even though the penalty is different. And note that non Jews are also potentially subject to the death penalty for theft of less than a pruta.
Finally, note that there are some differences of opinion regarding when abortions are permitted even in Judaism. Rav Moshe and the Tzitz Eliezer disagreed on a number of circumstances — and the Tzitz Eliezer’s position was accepted as normative in Israel’s medical system. Everyone should follow his/her own posek.
I do not agree with killing people nor do i agree with killing innocent little babies. These babies were not old enough to talk and say let me live. I am tired of people calling them fetuses, they are not fetuses they are babies. Stop trying to give excuses to kill little babies by calling it a fetus i am sick and tired of it. Do i mourn that a murderer was killed who happened to have a Medical license absolutely not. I stand with what i wrote and he was not doing it to save the mothers life, he was doing it for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Murder for money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A few basics for the confused: A Jew who kills a fetus is clearly not chayav missah as per the mishnah in niddah. A goy is chayav missah as per the Gemara in Sanhedrin. The Rambam clearly holds that killing a fetus is retzicha. The Ramban and Tosfos in Niddah appear to hold that it is not murder, although it is permitted to be mechalel shabbas for a fetus. Rav Moshe is mechadesh that even according to Tosfos and the Ramban it is considerd murder, albeit with no death penalty. The Seridei Aish and Tzitz Eliezer, and possibly the Yaabetz, disagree with Rav Moshe’s interpertation of the Ramban. All of the aforementioned is in regard to a fetus after it was “formed” meaning 40 days from conception. Prior to that, it is definitely not considered murder according to anyone as per the Gemara in Niddah.
what i understand from what i have learned is that abortion is considered murder for everyone and is not permissible. However, for a yid if an abortion has to be done for medical reasons, it is not considered that problematic if the fetus is less than 40 days old. After that it is much more problematic.
However, for a non Jew, abortion at any stage is considered murder and there is no justification unless there is a danger to the mother’s life. Terminating that pregnancy without a proper medical reason is considered murder and is totally forbidden.
There is no court now that rules according to the sheva mitzvos so a ben noach cannot do something such as the person did to this doctor since there is no proper court to judge him.
k illing a rodef is only permitted when he actually in the act of killing or by showing by showing by his actions that he wants to kill like chasing somebody with aweapon but just knowing that maybe he will kill somebody at some other time you could not kill
you can only kill a rodef either when he is in the act of killing or exhibiting somehow that he is about to kill like chasing somebody with a weapon
Killing a doctor is murder, even if abortion is also murder. Which part of, “Thou shalt not kill,” is hard to understand?
If an abortion is considered a killing, the doctor is wrong. But when you kill that doctor, you are wrong.
Also, I don’t even know why they start counting a person’s age from the actual birth.
How can you be killing, if the embryo is not even considered a minute old? I mean the embryo is not counted as alive until it’s aging process begins.
In any event, killing a doctor who performs abortions is still murder.
If there are two people going to kill one person…am i aloud to kill only one of them if the other will kill the victim anyways? Im not asking for an opinion. I am asking if anyone knows the sugya and has an actual teyretz. Please leave all baali batisha answers aside.
If you kill Dr. Mengele, are you a murderer?
Since there seems to be people here who want to know the actual halacha – and for Bnei Noach, here are the applicable laws. It is also very important to know them, as the Rambam says that it is our duty to influence (nowadays, by persuasion) non-Jews to keep the Sheva Mitzvos.
1)One who pursues a fetus, meaning that he wishes to kill the fetus in any manner, is considered a rodef, and it is permitted to save the fetus like any other pursued person, and if it is only possible to do so by killing the pursuer, this is permitted.
(Rambam, Laws of Murder, ch. 1 based on Niddah 44a and Ran there, and possibly even according to both opinions of Tosfos Sanhedrin 59a and for sure Rabbi Yishmael on 57b)
2)If a woman is dying in childbirth, it is permitted to cut the fetus out of her stomach and kill it, by medicine or hand, in order to save her, because the fetus is a rodef. If it has already stretched out its head, it is forbidden to touch it, for one cannot push one life away for another. If taking no action would result in both dying, or if it is clear that the child will die either way, or it will be stillborn, it is permissible to save her life by taking the fetus, even if the head or most of the body has come out.
(Panim Meiros vol. 3 ch. 8, and Tiferes Yisrael Boaz Ohalos end of ch. 7, )
3) One who is inclined to murder and does so regularly is considered a “pursuer”, and the court or anyone must kill him immediately.
(Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 388:15, and Shach there.)
4) It is not considered to be a human life until 40 days. Prior to this time it is like mere water. Therefore one who aborts an embryo within 40 days (or one who hit a pregnant woman who miscarried as a result) even though it is forbidden because of murder, and Hashem seeks the justice of this embryo, none the less the court do not execute as a result.
(Igros Moshe Choshen Mishpat Vol. 2 chapter 69 part 3 and others)
5) To take the law into one own’s hand, though the person may not be liable, it is still forbidden, as this would erase the process of due judgment (the mitzvah of dinim) and would corrupt society; see Minchas Chinuch Mitzvah 410 and Sefer Hachinuch Mitzvah 49.
(These halachos are from the yet-unpublished second volume of Sheva Mitzvos Hashem / The Divine Code by Rabbi Moshe Weiner (with comments by Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg)
There is absolutely no medical need for anyone, ever, to have a late term abortion. Any person who needs labor induced due to medical need can go to ANY ob-gyn in the country and have an induced pre-term delivery. The difference is that the ob-gyn will not purposefully kill the child during the process, though the child may die anyway if it is too premature or too sick to survive. It’s simply a LIE to say a late term abortion is ever “necessary.” An abortion is only necessary if you INTEND to end up with a dead baby.
Before any assumptions are made about rodef shmodef, I think that it is necessary to look into the nature of these abortions. I’m still trying to do some research about this story, and I have not yet come up with information that points to “murder,” as a couple of you still like to call it despite the fact that the VIN article itself says that according to Jewish law, abortions are never considered murder. But anyway, Tiller performed late-term abortions in cases where the patients’ fetuses had severe fatal birth defects. And while it is true as well that he aborted healthy fetuses, he performed those abortions to protect the mother from “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” (quote from Wall Street Journal)