3 ms·

> I, uhh, I guess that’s quite close to de-facto abortion on demand? Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multip

> I, uhh, I guess that’s quite close to de-facto abortion on demand? Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multiple redundant layers of extremely broad exceptions. Maybe the country has other priorities. Someone isn't familiar with Israeli politics. Since this is HN and a snarky comment won't suffice, let me elaborate: Israel is a cultural mishmosh of so many different varietals of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and every other thing that literally every view on every given issue exists. The country doesn't have a constitution because it can't agree on one.[1] The current government, which is falling apart, is a right-wing-left-wing coalition government that includes ultranationalists, Arab anti-Zionists, the left wing who was out of government for a decade, and vaguely centrist "yeah whatever Zionism" parties.[2] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is administered by no fewer than six (!) different churches who all share the space and have to carefully coordinate the timing of their rites and services.[3] And don't even get me started on gay marriage.[4] This topic is something that people who are blindly anti-Israel (as opposed to anti-Zionist philosophically, anti-the current Israeli government, anti-occupation, etc.) just do not understand. Israel is a melting pot that boiled over onto the stove and made the fire stronger instead of snuffing it out. It is a very strange place to have a government. So "we theoretically ban abortion because traditional sects of various groups don't like it but in practice we allow it for everyone because lots of people want it and we don't really want to make them angry either" is a typical Israeli policy position on something like this. It is just the nth example. This way, Israel can plausibly claim to take every position on this issue, all at once, and thereby appease a coalition of about a zillion different views. Now try to get the country to agree on an approach to Palestine and you see why the current situation is so messed up. [1] https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution-deepens-divisions-between-jews-and-with-arabs-162200 https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Isr... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-sex-couples-find-legal-loophole-to-recognize-marriages/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-s...

grasshopperpurp 4y ago
Thanks for posting this.
SilverBirch 4y ago
Take this for what it's worth, but my experience of my (liberal) Jewish heritage is that copious amounts of nuance is required in literally every argument, and often just literally directly opposing positions will be happily taken. My experience of it is that it's a philosophy that is very happy to both say "Abortion is completely wrong" and "Sometimes abortions have to happen". Trying to distill any of this down to hard facts or statistics is doomed to failure. There are ideological positions (sanctity of life), scientific positions (the point at which life begins) and pragmatic decisions (the weighing of two different lives), and that tension underpins all these different decisions.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  This is my experience as well. And it is critical to maintain a separation between "I personally would not prefer my unborn child be aborted" and "nobody should be allowed to abort a child anywhere because abortion is equivalent to murder in all cases." You've gotta be comfortable holding both those thoughts in your head and realizing that your beliefs don't generalize to everyone. Judaism is littered with nuances and complexities that make it very different from other religious traditions that predominate in the US, for instance.
maratc 4y ago
> This way, Israel can plausibly claim to take every position on this issue, all at once, and thereby appease a coalition of about a zillion different views. I'd like to point out that this hasn't started with Israel per se; the roots are in Jewish tradition, Judaism, and Jewish philosophy. There's rarely a "this is right and that is wrong" situation. The whole Talmud is basically "here's the problem; here's one view; here's an opposing view; now learn both by heart" stuff. Allowing for opposing views to co-exist is rooted deeply in the society, and maybe something worth if not adopting, then at least admiring.
- 4y ago

grasshopperpurp 4y ago

Thanks for posting this.

SilverBirch 4y ago

Take this for what it's worth, but my experience of my (liberal) Jewish heritage is that copious amounts of nuance is required in literally every argument, and often just literally directly opposing positions will be happily taken. My experience of it is that it's a philosophy that is very happy to both say "Abortion is completely wrong" and "Sometimes abortions have to happen". Trying to distill any of this down to hard facts or statistics is doomed to failure. There are ideological positions (sanctity of life), scientific positions (the point at which life begins) and pragmatic decisions (the weighing of two different lives), and that tension underpins all these different decisions.

ivraatiems 4y ago
This is my experience as well. And it is critical to maintain a separation between "I personally would not prefer my unborn child be aborted" and "nobody should be allowed to abort a child anywhere because abortion is equivalent to murder in all cases." You've gotta be comfortable holding both those thoughts in your head and realizing that your beliefs don't generalize to everyone. Judaism is littered with nuances and complexities that make it very different from other religious traditions that predominate in the US, for instance.

maratc 4y ago

> This way, Israel can plausibly claim to take every position on this issue, all at once, and thereby appease a coalition of about a zillion different views. I'd like to point out that this hasn't started with Israel per se; the roots are in Jewish tradition, Judaism, and Jewish philosophy. There's rarely a "this is right and that is wrong" situation. The whole Talmud is basically "here's the problem; here's one view; here's an opposing view; now learn both by heart" stuff. Allowing for opposing views to co-exist is rooted deeply in the society, and maybe something worth if not adopting, then at least admiring.

4y ago