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Posted on 01/03/2008 8:43:24 AM PST by NYer
JERUSALEM, January 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Chief Rabbinate of Israel ruled on December 24 that abortion is a grave sin and that abortion is delaying the coming of the messiah.
The Chief Rabbinate decided that it would establish a special committee to lobby to reduce the number of abortions carried out in Israel, and was supported in its ruling by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.
Dr. Eli Schussheim, director of the anti-abortion organization Efrat, made a presentation to the Chief Rabbinate in which he presented the figures concerning abortion in Israel. According to the presentation, over 50,000 abortions are performed yearly in Israel, only 20,000 of which are legal.
"The vast majority of abortions are unnecessary and strictly forbidden according to halacha because they are carried out even when the pregnancies do not endanger the mother's health," the rabbis wrote in their decision.
The rabbis further believe that abortions are delaying the messiah, based on an expression uttered by the Jewish sages which can be construed that the messiah will not arrive until all children to be born to Jewish mothers are born.
The rabbis based their ruling primarily on Genesis 9:6, which reads: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." The rabbis, in making their ruling based on this text, affirmed the dignity of unborn persons, all of whom are made in the image of God.
According to the Mishnah, a record of oral interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures, abortion is only permitted when a woman's life is in danger.
See Related LifeSiteNews Coverage:
Jewish Rabbi: If Catholic Leaders Rally, Jews and Evangelicals Would Follow
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07010409.html
Current Medical Euthanasia and Eugenic Abortion Practices Echo Nazi Past
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/oct/03100208.html
Not All Jews Oppose HLI
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1999/apr/990408a.html
YAY! God bless Israel!!
Praise G_d.
That means that without abortion, Jewish and Arab birthrates in Israel would be at parity.
Cheers and blessings for the Chief Rabbis of Israel - ping!
a 50% of live births in Israel end in abortion ?
My God....that is atrocious for a civilized culture....I would expect that in China.....
God frowns on this as surely as the sun rises in the east.
I honestly don’t understand the logic of waiting for the Messiah... and I don’t mean to be insulting. For millenia prior to the coming of Christ, you had deliverers, prophets, judges and kings who prophesied what to expect in the coming Messiah. Then Jesus came and fulfilled all of them—albeit differently than the Jewish expectations. There have been no new deliverers, prophets, judges and kings since with new revelations and prophecies on a future Messiah. Why could that be?
Kinda puts all that "Israel is fighting against radical Islamic enemies for its very survival" nonsense into perspective. If the rabbi's numbers are correct, then Israel's own citizenry kills off a number of its own people every 18-19 days that equals all of the Israeli victims of terrorism in Palestine/Israel from 1920 through 1999.
No, that's a misreading of the statistics, but the reality is almost as bad: The approx. 7m population of Israel is about 5.5m Jews, 1.5m Muslims --- depending on where you draw the boundary line --- but this ratio is changing, because the total fertility rate of Jewish women is 2.75, while the TFR for Muslim women is 4.
Every year there are about 150,000 pregnancies to Jewish women in Israel, resulting in 100,000 live births and 50,000 abortions.
There are approximately 150,000 births per year in Israel. This includes the 100,000 live births to Israeli Jews, plus 50,000 to Israeli Muslims.
So in the Israeli Jewish community, there are twice as many live births as abortions: approximately 1/3 of all unborn Jews in Israel are murdered.
Heartbreaking.
that has to be one of the highest abortion rates amongst developed cultures
100,000 live births
50,000 abortions
Here in the US, abortion rights advocates are seriuously represented by Jewish women in the leadership groups...Kate Michelman comes to mind first...is there some tenet or ambiguity in Judaism that permits this?
I know orthodox Jews loathe abortion.....and there is a Jews For Life outfit filled with some well known names to counter the prevailing wisdom
I’m southern baptist....it’s frowned on seriously and I can’t think of any church leader who would openly be pro-abortion yet I’m sure SBC girls have abortions
if many groups just followed their teachings, this would be more of a footnote to history
Here in the US, there were 1.2 million abortions and around 4.5 million live births in 2005
and folks wonder why so many of us consider this an abomination.
"KATE MICHELMAN: I was a stay-at-home Catholic mom of three little girls, and having grown-up in the 1950s, I was, like many women, my values in life were about my family and my ideal... In any case, in 1969 my husband abandoned me and my three daughters, really literally left our lives in a very abrupt way. I was forced onto welfare. ...A few weeks after he left, I discovered that I was pregnant again..."
What is the current abortion law in Israel?
She is under 18 or over 40 (cost to those in between: 1,500 shekels [$370]).
She is carrying a fetus with a serious mental or physical defect (free).
She claims that the fetus results from forbidden relations such as rape or incest (free) or, in the case of a married woman, that the baby is not her husband's (not free). Single women also fall under this clause, and they too must pay.
She shows that by continuing the pregnancy, her physical or mental health would be damaged (free).
In 1980, a fifth criterion that allowed abortions for women living in economic hardship was abolished due to pressure from religious political parties.
A woman who seeks to terminate a pregnancy must appear before one of the 41 abortion committees operating in public and private hospitals around the country. These committees include three members — a physician whose field of expertise is obstetrics and gynecology; another physician who is either a family doctor, psychiatrist, internist or gynecologist, and a social worker. At least one woman must be present on each committee.
Six separate committees consider requests for termination when a fetus is beyond 24 weeks old. No hospitals in Jerusalem, however, will perform these abortions.
In 1999, 19,674 applications out of 20,581 were approved (96%) and 18,785 pregnancies were terminated. In addition, 16,000 abortions were illegally performed in private doctors' clinics. In general, about 40,000 abortions are carried out in Israel every year. The Health Ministry approves about half of them, and private doctors perform the rest, without the supervision of the state and at the cost of thousands of shekels.
See also Abortions in Israel
SCARY SCARY SCARY
Don't know where they got their stats, but per Abortion statistics and other data the numbers are around 144,000 births and 20,000 abortions. Illegal abortions in Israel, like anywhere else, who knows. Not sure I'd consider Kate Michelman representative of Jews, even if by chance she has converted.
Jews do have a history of child sacrifice.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT
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Read the book of Jeremiah.
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