But there’s a limit to listening.

A few weeks ago we read the sedrah of Ki Tetzei, which includes Deut. 22:22: “If a man is found lying with a woman who is married to a husband, they shall die, even both of them, the man who lay with the woman and the woman …”

Rashi comments that the words “even” and “both of them” (two separate words in Hebrew) can’t possibly teach that the woman and the man must both die, since that is stated explicitly. No, Jewish tradition teaches that the extra words mean this: if the woman becomes pregnant from the sexual encounter, she is executed without waiting for the baby to be born.

Today, of course, Western societies follow King Lear’s ruling: “Die for adultery? No,” (4.6).

But what about the adulteress’s pregnancy?

In the spirit of listening to people whose opinions I usually reject, I read part of the Republican platform. I’m sure most Republicans are bright and decent and love the United States and our planet and our fellow humans and all God’s creatures including lizards and lice just as fervently as I do, but sometimes I find myself disagreeing with them. Not to be political, but I never vote with them.

Here’s what I read on page 13 of the Republican platform:

… we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life that cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

And here’s a little of that Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

So in case a woman is on death row and pregnant (probably raped by a prison guard), what happens in a Republican world? Presumably the mother gives birth and gets executed, while the baby is raised in the loving arms of the Republican state, no doubt without welfare or healthcare.

Somehow, this doesn’t seem right to me.

Jewish tradition seems to say that a baby isn’t a baby until it’s a baby, and a foetus is not a baby. I wish I heard the Jewish position acknowledged more frequently as a proper, ethical and religious point of view.