For the present time, the temper of the land is under a conservative cloud, but 16 years from now, a more liberal atmosphere may define America and, again, the Supreme Court will be faced with one of its most controversial decisions. America will be back where it started from, pitting the individual freedom of the mother against the fetus in her womb.
Jewish law has an ethical, but also a pragmatic, approach to the question of abortion.
In this week's portion, Mishpatim, we come across the first commandment in the Torah which brings up the issue of the fetus. The rabbis gleaned from these two cases that a fetus was not considered a life. The view, however, which seems to look upon the fetus as less than life, is not the only one we find among the Sages. Keeping in mind the overriding principle that the Shabbat may only be desecrated to save a life, and that in this instance, since the mother is already dead, the life at stake can certainly not be hers. R. Nachman is therefore ruling in the name of Schmuel that the Sabbath may be desecrated for the life of a fetus.