Q&A: Abortion
Abortion
Question
A friend of mine is a Haredi girl… she met a secular guy. On the one hand she is very in love with religion… and on the other hand she is very in love with the guy. She is in a very difficult dilemma whether to leave religion for the sake of the guy or to stay religious. Right now she is in a situation where she keeps everything except for the relationship with the guy. Recently she became pregnant… and if she continues the pregnancy she will leave religion. The question is whether she is permitted to have an abortion so that she will not leave religion.
Answer
There is no permission whatsoever to have an abortion for non-medical reasons. The consequences are a separate matter that must be dealt with separately. I assume this will be difficult vis-à-vis the family, but even so there is no permission to kill the fetus because of that. It's a shame she didn't think about this in advance.
There are mixed couples in which one is religious and the other secular, or vice versa, and they may be able to try to marry and maintain a shared life with mutual consideration.
Discussion on Answer
I've written more than once that in my view the main problem with abortion is the moral one, not the halakhic one.
Maybe during the first 40 days of the pregnancy one can be lenient,
like the Tzitz Eliezer and others.
After all, there is an important issue here of human dignity and more, no?