what the bible says about abortion:

[Kber]

9. The talmud does specifically reference abortion, actually.

It specifically says that in choosing between the life of a woman and that of her unborn child, you are obligated to save the woman's life even if it means "cutting the fetus out, limb by limb" and even if the pregnancy is so progressed that she is in labor.

The biblical root for this Talmudic decision was a passage listing the various punishments for misdeeds in which killing someone, even a slave, was punishable by death where as hitting a woman and causing her to miscarry got you a fine. The rabbis reasoned, therefore, that if murder is always punishable by death, but causing a miscarriage wasn't, that an abortion was not murder because the fetus was not a person yet.

They then applied the well established rule that saving a life was the highest priority that superseded all others, except you can't kill an innocent person to save another. So you can't kill an already living and breathing kid so you can transfer his heart to someone else who needs a new one.

But, if the fetus is not a person, there is no moral issue with an abortion.

Note: this reasoning was not "pro-choice". A woman was not supposed to choose to, for example, delay or forgo medical treatment that would cause a miscarriage but was necessary to save her own life (i.e. chemo). She is "obligated" to try to save her own life first.

Interestingly, the Talmud also says that if choosing between saving a man or saving a woman's life, you should save the woman first. However, if you had to choose between saving a man from being raped or saving a woman from the same fate, you should save the man first. I forget the reasoning behind that one, though.