jackk,
“You are only referring to abortion and not to the other aveira that was being talked about. What would you do with that avaira?”
I am admittedly less knowledgeable about the nuances and ramifications of that debate, so this question may seem naive, but why are the states and Federal government involved with marriage at all, when it is primarily a religiously defined status (holy matrimony)? Why not do away with marriage licenses and laws completely, and allow people to choose whoever they want to be their beneficiaries, power of attorney, etc? People can do that now; legal marriage just sets the spouse as the default.
Regarding abortion – I will argue with you because the debate of when life starts is at the crux of the abortion issue. Only in the Torah do we find a fetus is a human life.
Nah. Go to the library and check out any secular week-by-week style pregnancy book. They all refer to the baby with the language of personhood. The only time a baby becomes a non-human, non-living fetus is when discussing abortion.
Every non-jew living in America does not need to be restricted based on the Torah’s definition of when life starts.”
Pardon the slippery slope argument, but would you hold the same way if America decided that “life” starts at 4 months of age? For the first three months of life, in many ways, babies act more like fetuses than “sentient” beings. This is not a purely hypothetical question – there are “intellectuals” out there who make arguments such as this.