Israel’s Slaughter of Israelis There have been only a few articles in the American press about abortion in Israel. One of the most revealing was published in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 7, 1997, entitled "JEWISH TRADITIONALISTS, SOME CALLING ABORTION ‘THE SECOND HOLOCAUST,’ ABHOR IT. The author tells it straight "With the army providing free abortions for female soldiers, and social workers actively promoting abortion as a cure-all for emotional and economic woes, abortion in Israel is a widely accepted practice. But that may change with new restrictive legislation before the Israeli Knesset."
A study of census figures of both Israel and the USA comparing their officially reported abortions reveals that the Israeli rate of abortion is about 131% of the reported US rate, and may be much higher, if all the facts could be known. This figure is also understated because Israel’s population includes well over a million Muslims living in Israel, whose abortion rate is probably nil. Muslims in the Mid East rarely even discuss the subject, so alien is the practice of abortion in their culture. There is no comparable large, effectively zero, abortion rate group in the US, so it is likely the rate per Jewish citizen is higher yet.
Christianity Today is right to call it an "epidemic," though it erroneously reports that the official Israeli abortion rate is about "one-half the United States rate" but did not support this statement. Its error is probably in failing to count the illegal abortions reported. The Israeli government has a self-policed monopoly on "legal" abortions, but it also reports an almost equal number of "illegal" abortions. Obviously these were not being prevented, or else how could the government know how many to report? In 1999, 16,000 illegal abortions were reported. But if these were free enterprise, privately, confidentially performed abortions one might expect underreporting if anything. There is no way to know how much worse the actual abortion rate in Israel is. (Satiates for calculation were gleamed from the US Census 2000, the CIA world Factbook, Israel, the US Center for Disease Control, and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics)
Considering that an exceptionally large number of Israelis are atheists, they know they have no one to answer to but themselves. Each does what is right in his own eyes. As the Bible says, "Truly we are a double-minded people." -end, part one.
The author, Seán D. Mac an Airchinnigh, is a first time author for WHTT. He is a graduate of Grace College and studied at two theological seminaries. You may contact him at (author@whtt.org)