man Empire, Gibbon wrote of the nonconformistrnwho, in escaping from Rome,rncould once hope to find:rna secure refuge, a new fortune adequaternto his merit, the freedom ofrncomplaint, and perhaps the meansrnof revenge. But the empire of thernRomans filled the world, and,rnwhen that empire fell into thernhands of a single person, the worldrnbecame a safe and drear)’ prison forrnhis enemies. The slave of hnperialrndespotism, whether he was condemnedrnto drag his gilded chain inrnRome and the senate, or to wearrnout a life of exile on the barren rockrnof Seriphus, or the frozen banks ofrnthe Danube, expected his fate inrnsilent despair. To resist was fatal,rnand it was impossible to fly.rnIn other words, it is not enough that anrnAmerican should eat hamburgers in Philadelphia;rnhe must also eat hamburgers inrnVenice. It is not enough for him to dressrnlike a globetrotting athlete at home, inrnthe United States of America; for flie homogenizingrnprocess to be effectie, hernmust also dress like a Harlem athlete inrnthe Ihiited States of Europe. To resistrnmust be fatal; it must also be impossiblernto fl’.rnAndrei Navrozov is Chronicles’rnEuropean correspondent.rnLetter FromrnInner Israelrnby Jacob NeusnerrnLehayyim —”To Life,”rnNot AbortionrnSince manv Jewish institufions and indi-rn iduals speaking “as Jews” (or so the’ sav)rnfavor unrestricted aborfion, pro-life peoplernoften assume that Judaism does, too.rnBut when we distinguish the personalrnopinions of individuals from the doctrinesrnof a faith set forth in authoritativernholv books, matters prove more complex.rnAnd when we realize that, from the timernof Spinoza to the present, not all of thosernwho identified themselves as Jews ha’ernprofessed the religion of Judaism, we recognizerna considerable error: the confusionrnof public opinion among Jews,rnwhich tends to favor liberal oxer eonser-rnN’ative positions in politics, with the theologicalrnjudgment of Judaism as set forthrnin the Torah.rnA broadly circulated new essay, “ArnTorah-View of Abortion,” by distinguishedrnOrthodox Judaic religious leaderrnRabbi Shlomo Riskin, an American whornhas settled in Efrat, Israel, provides arnclear and succinct account of die matter.rnRiskin perspicaciously sees the issue ofrnabortion on demand in Exodus 21:22-23:rn”and if Ho men strive together and hurt arnwoman, causing her to miscarr, andrnthere is no fatal harm, he shall surcK’ bernfined. . . But if fatal injury follows, dienrn on shall give life for life.” Riskin properlyrnreads the “fatal injury” to refer to thernwoman, not the unborn child, and herncalls attention to the well-established lawrnof the Mishnah, the authoritative secondcentur’rnlaw code on which the Talmudrnof Bab Ionia is constructed, that “one liferncannot set aside another life.” Hence, if arnwoman’s life is in danger, een in labor,rnthe unborn child is to be destroved so asrnto save the life of the mother. The rule,rnof course, is irrelevant to the contemporaryrndebate, since (in general) it is not thernlite, but the convenience, of the motherrnthat is at stake; to put matters more charitablv,rnabortionists never advocate legalrnabortion limited to the purpose of savingrna woman’s life.rnThe real question is: Is the fetus consideredrna life that is sacred? The answerrnis unequivocallv ves. The Bablonianrn1 almud takes the position that, if a pregnantrnwoman dies on the Sabbath and it isrnpossible to remove the fetus so that thernchild may survive, one is to violate thernlaws that protect the sanetit)’ of the Sabbathrnin order to save the life of flie fetus.rnTliat ruling provides unambiguous eidencernon the issue at hand. Since thernlaw maintains that the Sabbath’s sanctih”rnma’ be iolated o;:/y to save a human life,rnthe ruling clearly rests upon flie premisernthat the vuiborn child is fulK hviman.rnThe Babylonian Talmud further holdsrnthat life begins when tiie soul and bodyrnare united, which is the 40th da afterrnconception.rnRiskin asks, “Can we call a fetus a fullfledgedrnlife, wifli complete rights and fullrnprotection entitled for all human beings?”rnHe finds his answer in the legalrncode of Moses Maimonides, a principalrnauthority for Judaism. Judaism frames itsrntheological opinions through rulings onrnwhat people may or may not do, on flierntheory that what we do is an authoritativernstatement of what we are, and what wernaim to be: in God’s image, after God’srnlikeness. Accordingly, if we want to findrnthe authoritative theological ruling onrnany question, we must start w ith the normativernaccount of how people are supposedrnto behave. From that concrete andrnirreducible fact, we extrapolate the theologicalrnprinciple. On the issue of abortion,rnto grasp Maimonides’ view—whichrnenjovs the authority and standing of thernview of Judaism —we shall have to movernin hvo distinct steps.rnThe first is his explanation of why, ifrnthe fetus is inside the womb, the mother’srnlife takes precedence. (When the headrnhas emerged, that is no longer the case,rnbecause one life is not set aside in favor ofrnanother.) Maimonides’ reasoning is, onrnthe face of it, somewhat jarring. He saysrnwe are obligated to destroy the fetus “becausernthe fetus is considered a pursuer, inrneffect, a murderer,” in threatening thernlife of the mother. In his laws of murder,rnMaimonides rules that “if we come uponrna potential murderer clutching a knife inrnhot pursuit of someone in flight, we arernobligated to do what it takes to stop thernpursuer, even if it means killing him” (arnriding that the New York courts would dornwell to contemplate). Riskin comments:rnBy placing the law of abortion withinrnthe framework of flie laws ofrnmurder and then offering the analogvrnof the fetus to the legal positionrnof a potential murderer, who is tornbe destroyed, Maimonides opensrnthe nahire of the fehis for detailedrnanalvsis.rnHis analogy treats the fetus as a being inrnits own right; it is not part of the mother.rnIt is a potential life, and, Riskin says, “onerncannot get rid of the fetus at will.”rnThe fetus may be part of the mother,rnmaintains Judaism in Riskin’s reading,rnbut that does not mean the mother ownsrnthe fetus or is free to dispose of him atrnwill. Riskin writes, “Treating a humanrnlife seriously means that we have to treatrnpotential human life seriousK’ as well. Ifrnthe mother cannot destro her own life,rnshe cannot destro}- a life that is not hersrneither.” If the fetus threatens the life ofrnthe mother, he must be destroved. Thernlaw of Judaism recognizes as life-threateningrnpsychological as well as physicalrnSEPTEMBER 2000/35rnrnrn