Jewish Opposition to Partial-Birth Abortion Gain Momentum at Conference

By Liz Townsend

The growing outcry in the Jewish community against partial-birth abortion gained momentum with a November conference that brought together Jewish and Christian leaders to discuss points of agreement between the two faiths and ways they can work together to restore the sanctity of life to American society.

"The conference was a tremendous success," Chris Gersten, president of the Institute of Religious Values, told NRL News. " People stayed hours after it was over, networking and continuing the discussion."

Gersten said that the dialogue in the Jewish community and between Jews and Christians will continue in the months ahead. A video and monograph of the conference will be available, bringing the discussion to a wider audience. Other conferences will be held in several locations around the country.

Actor and law professor Ben Stein, who gave a well-received luncheon speech at the conference, agreed to serve as chairman of a new project to continue the dialogue on Jewish involvement in reducing abortion. A federal political action committee, called Christians and Jews for Life, is being organized.

The Institute of Religious Values began the effort to bring the Jewish community together to oppose partial-birth abortion last year by sponsoring an open letter signed by 100 rabbis opposing President Clinton's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. A similar letter signed by prominent Jewish women followed the rabbis' letter.

The institute organized the November 12 conference with the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where it was held. The conference, titled " Affirming the Sanctity of Human Life: Exploring How the Jewish Community Can Work to Reduce Abortion," featured panel discussions on topics ranging from how abortion is viewed in Jewish law, the facts about partial-birth abortion, post- abortion reconciliation, and the religious perspective on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The first panel, titled "Abortion and Jewish Law - - The Religious Tradition," featured respected rabbis from the Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative traditions in Judaism. The speakers set the tone of the day with a serious and in-depth discussion, and provided a basic grounding in the view of life issues from all aspects of Judaism. The rabbis, despite approaching their religion from three different ways, all agreed that those of Jewish faith should play a prominent role in reducing the number of abortions, especially partial-birth abortions.

Rabbi Barry Freundel, an Orthodox rabbi from the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., began the discussion by speaking about the status of the unborn child in Jewish law and the balance between the child and the mother. While the unborn baby is inside the mother's womb, Jewish tradition does not treat both of them as entirely equal in all cases.

Freundel asserted that in extreme cases when the mother's life is in serious danger if the pregnancy continues, abortion is " permitted, perhaps even required."

But this requirement has clear limits, Freundel insisted: "There is an end to that which is the partial-birth abortion kind of issue, when the majority of the fetus has emerged, when the head has emerged . . . at that point the mother and the child are co- equal and you cannot push aside one soul for another soul."

In addition, even when the unborn child has not been partially delivered, abortion for social reasons is not allowed. "[Jewish law] doesn't allow for abortion in cases where the child is inconvenient or it's going to mess up your vacation, or economically it's a problem or you don't like the gender of the child - - all that is clearly prohibited," Freundel said. "It is clearly not allowed in Jewish law."

Rabbi Clifford Librach of Temple Sinai in Sharon, Massachusetts, approached the abortion issue from the Reform tradition, which is more liberal than the Orthodox. Librach made the point that even leaders in the Reform movement have condemned abortion on demand.

He quoted from a publication of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of Reform Judaism, which states: "We do not encourage abortion nor favor it for trivial reasons nor sanction it on demand. Indeed, all the reform responses concerning the subject are careful to couch their lenient rulings within the general traditional understanding of the importance of alleviating great pain to the mother. None of them suggest that Judaism should countenance any other reason as a valid basis for abortion."

"[I]f we're to reduce the number of abortions in our society it will be because women will be surrounded with companionship," Librach said, "and will feel through our efforts of support and compassion the dignity and respect that they have been denied but which, now strengthened, they can with God's help in turn devote to their vulnerable but precious progeny."

Rabbi David Novak, who holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, is from the Conservative tradition. Novak asserted that many Jews support the political position in favor of abortion because it is perceived as the "liberal" position, which Jews tend to follow. However, Novak insisted that to be truly Jewish does not mean following a particular secular point of view but rather following Jewish law.

"Certainly, the greatest good for Jews is to be able to study the Torah and Jewish tradition and fully practice the commandments as the content of their identity," he said. "Hence if any political position - - liberal, conservative, or whatever - - causes Jews to deviate from the only criterion by which they have any coherent Jewish identity at all, that position must be rejected because it is contrary to Judaism and thereby dangerous for the Jews."

Novak reiterated Rabbi Freundel's discussion of the Jewish tradition balancing the rights of the unborn baby and the mother, and agreed that in partial-birth abortion, when the baby is all but delivered, both mother and child are equal and the procedure can never be valid. Only when the mother's life is in danger, when the unborn child is fully within her womb, can abortion ever be considered under Jewish law.

"And with minimal prenatal care, which virtually all Jewish women in our society can and do receive, having to choose between the fetus within its mother's body and her life is a much rarer choice than it was in earlier times," Novak said. "[W]hen the claims for elective abortion are being made on grounds directly at odds with the traditional Jewish emphasis of the sanctity of human life from conception to unequivocal death, it seems wisest to be aware that abortion has become a matter of basic public policy over and above a matter of rare individual cases."

That this "public policy" now sanctions the gruesome partial-birth procedure, and a pro-abortion president refuses to sign a bill banning it, was uppermost in the minds of the speakers at an afternoon session titled "Partial-Birth Abortion." Sandi Merle, founder of an organization called Standing Together to Oppose Partial-Birth, introduced Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Goldstock, director of the Heart to Heart Foundation, and Rabbi Moses Birnbaum of the Plainview Jewish Center in Plainview, New York.

In her opening comments, Merle defined the partial-birth procedure as "pre-term delivery, followed by an act of violence, resulting in death." She lamented that partial birth and other assaults on the sanctity of human life "have driven home a message that the American culture is becoming a culture of violence and death," she said.

Abortion is "very much like the killing of unwanted babies in the days of Moses. It is an infamous sign of human regression if we are to become the murderous pharaohs, rather than the lifesaving midwives," Merle said.

Rabbi Birnbaum, the first Conservative rabbi to sign the Institute for Religious Values-sponsored letter, agreed with Merle that partial-birth abortion must be banned, calling it "a procedure unique in its total violation of Jewish law." Birnbaum issued a challenge to rabbis who are reluctant to speak with one voice against the gruesome procedure: "Yes, we have difference of opinion on the larger abortion questions, but something is wrong with this picture if we cannot unite against a practice tantamount to infanticide."

Birnbaum admitted that rabbis who join the discussion about abortion would face criticism from members of the Jewish community who hold an entrenched view that abortion should remain legal, but he encouraged them to speak out. "If consciousness is raised regarding abortion on demand, I say that discussion is long overdue in the Jewish community," he said.

"This, of course, would require courage on the part of rabbis in facing the organized political wrath which would surely come down upon their heads. We are professionally responsible to educate our people so that abortion will not be taken lightly."

The three other sessions featured Jewish and Christian speakers and focused on issues beyond partial-birth abortion about which both faiths can find common ground. Rabbi Cary Kozberg, director of rabbinical services of Wexner Heritage Village; Helen Alvare of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; Douglas Johnson, NRLC legislative director; and Marice Rosenberg, legislative director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and an at- large director to the NRLC board of directors, discussed parental notification, informed consent, and child custody protection, three legislative initiatives that can be crucial to reducing the number of abortions.

In another session, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan of the Sisters of Life and Dr. Stephanie O'Callaghan, professor of psychology at Dominican College, talked about post-abortion trauma and ways to help women reach reconciliation. O'Callaghan shared her own experience of abortion trauma and recovery and also approached it from a professional viewpoint.

The final session focused on the end of life: euthanasia and assisted suicide. Dean Bernard Dobranski and Robert Destro of Catholic University's law school, Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Rabbi David Feldman of the New Jersey Jewish Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, shared the perspectives of both the Christian and Jewish faiths on the morality of these end-of-life issues.

"This excellent conference was a good place to begin a discussion in the Jewish community about ways to reduce abortion," Marice Rosenberg told NRL News. "Such a discussion could be a wonderful avenue to help us accomplish our ultimate goal of restoring respect for all human life."