As for the views that it is proper to kill Jews, there it is clear that this is outside the “radius of tolerance” because it is completely devoid of logic (and therefore also illegitimate). But as you wrote in the article “The Price of Tolerance,” sometimes there are opposing views that can both be reasonable and legitimate (in the sense of “these and those are the words of the living God”), and yet only one of them is correct. In such a case, you argued that one should respect the view opposed to one’s own, in order to preserve the value of the other person’s autonomy. Therefore, if we say that the pro-choice position is a legitimate view, would it be correct to say that one should respect that view and those who hold it? Or should we say that the “radius of tolerance” contracts in inverse proportion to the price of tolerance (in this case the price is high, since human life is at stake), and therefore the high price pushes the pro-choice view outside the circle of tolerance.

Why does killing a fetus seem legitimate to you? It is not the same as killing a person, but in my opinion it is very far from legitimate. The only reason to see it as legitimate is the number of people who are mistaken about it. But I am not sure that is a relevant criterion. In my view, it is not within the radius of tolerance because of both criteria: 1. the price; 2. the plausibility of the reasoning. But of course it is hard to separate them, because the reasoning is implausible partly because human life is involved.

First of all, more power to you for the honest and courageous answer. Still, before your followers do something violent, I want to argue that sometimes abortion is a reasonable act, such as when there is an expectation that the baby would be non-viable or have a defect such that one can estimate that a person would prefer not to be born, or where there is concern for the mother’s mental health.

Hello Yoni. First, nowadays it is common to support abortion simply because of a woman’s right over her own body, and not in order to benefit the fetus itself. I take it that on this point we have no disagreement, and my enthusiastic followers have hereby received from both of us a 007 license.

But even regarding a severely disabled child, your point is debatable. Is murdering a severely disabled person not murder? If a person is fed up with his life for some reason and you kill him, is that not murder? All the more so when this is a person who never told you that this is what he wants. That is only your assessment. Beyond that, there is the philosophical problem that exists in wrongful birth. If that person never comes into the world, then his position carries no weight. See my article on this here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%94/

There is no dispute that this is a barbaric and cruel act. But there are realities in which one is forced to do barbaric and cruel things. By the way, a woman’s right over her own body is not a worthless argument. True, it is overridden by the fetus’s right to live, but it is fit to be combined with other considerations…

Following up on this question, what would the ruling be regarding abortions of fetuses with severe physical defects?

It is hard to determine something sharp and clear-cut, and still it seems to me that it is forbidden. From the standpoint of Jewish law there is room to permit it, but morally it is specifically hard to permit.

Following up on this question, do you think it would be possible to file a petition to the High Court of Justice against abortions? After all, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty forbids harm to a person’s life, and the law itself did not define the term “person” (to the best of my knowledge and understanding). As long as the law did not define who is a person, and also did not explicitly exclude the fetus from the group of human beings, seemingly there is no explicit statement by the legislature that the fetus is not a person, and therefore the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty applies to it unless proven otherwise. One could argue that there is a law that explicitly permits abortions, but I once heard Justice Aharon Barak say that since the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty is a basic law, where there is a conflict between it and an ordinary law, the basic law prevails over the ordinary law. What do you think?

Indeed, that is the content of Barak’s “constitutional revolution.” On the matter itself, I have very serious doubts, although of course I am not a jurist. In my opinion there is no chance whatsoever of winning such a High Court petition. What would the legal arguments be? I do not know. Perhaps a woman’s right over her own body (assuming that a fetus is certainly not a person even without a definition in the law. Just as a chair is not a person, even without a definition in the law). And perhaps one could rely on the conflict between the woman’s interest and that of the fetus (she does not want to sustain it in her body, just as if I do not want to give someone money, I am not obligated to do so even if he is starving and on the verge of death).