The answer, at least for most Jews in America, is yes. But the purpose of this article by Rabbi Dr. Gidon Rothstein is to explore one halakhic (Jewish legal) model for reaching that conclusion. Or at least to refrain from opposing it, as most Orthodox Jews do.
I share this brief exploration, not because I agree with it’s conclusions or because I think it is the only or even best Jewish rationale for supporting Roe. I share it because it demonstrates the value of non-polarized thinking around of one of nations most polarizing issues.
Moving From ‘No’ to ‘Maybe’: Can Jews Support Roe v. Wade?
by: Gidon Rothstein

Discussions of US public policy which include Jews who care about Jewish law often operate under one of two false premises. Some Jews assume the privilege of advocating for whatever policies appeal to their own sense of morality, independent of what Judaism may say. Such Jews might add that the religion speaks to them, but need not color their recommendations for an America populated largely by non-Jews.
The problem with this stance is that Jewish law in fact legislates for non-Jews as well as Jews, although in fewer areas. Actively promoting or encouraging others’ flouting laws that the religion thinks applies to them does not seem internally consistent with such Jews’ personal adherence to the religion. To take a fairly simple example, since Judaism is opposed to idol worship by any humans, there is no clear or obvious way that a Jew might feel comfortable promoting a public policy that approved of worshiping idols even by non-Jews.

Let me hasten to add that Judaism’s opposition to a practice does not necessarily obligate Jews to work to prohibit that practice. When a society decides not to police or prosecute a certain type of wrong, there is room for Jews to accede to that (although some authorities, such as Maimonides, would seem to think that such a decision is illegitimate for the non-Jewish society itself). The questions of when Jewish law requires eradicating wrongful practices from our midst is a complex one, but is not our question here. We are focused on what is more problematic, Jews’ agreeing that an act that runs counter to Jewish law and values is actually an absolute right of members of our society.
If that first camp wrongly or mistakenly allows themselves too much latitude to shape their views of public policy, a second camp errs the other way, assuming that all Jewish values should ideally be incorporated in American life. We can imagine Jews taking political positions in favor of what is called “family values,” for example, because Jewish law promotes such values for Jews. The hole in the thinking, however, is that Jewish law does not legislate such values and practices for non-Jews. It might be a good idea, but a proponent of such a view would have to prove it independent of Jewish values, since those were stated for Jews, not for all of humanity.
For another example, were there to be an anti-usury movement in this country, there would be no need for Jews to join, since Jewish law’s opposition to taking interest is an internecine matter, a question of how Jews treat each other, not of the morality of lending at interest.
With this background, I think it is easier to understand why I had always assumed that Jewish law required Jews to oppose the impression that abortion was an acceptable alternative, a legitimate choice. Since the Talmud clearly reads the Torah as proscribing abortion for non-Jews as much as for Jews (indeed, the laws for non-Jews are more restrictive), the most liberal a Jew could be on this issue was to accept the need to refrain from prosecuting such acts. Certainly, I thought, any Jew sensitive to Jewish law or values could not be in favor of abortion rights.
It was with surprise, then, that I came across a comment in Minhat Hinuch (a nineteenth-century elucidation of the Torah’s commandments by R. Joseph Babad) that opens the door to exactly such a position. In discussing the laws of murder (Mitsvah 34; p. 186 in vol. 1 of the Machon Yerushalayim edition), he assumes that a nefel, a baby born so prematurely or with such defects that it cannot live, would not be included in the Torah’s prohibition of murder by non-Jews.
In introducing that comment, he writes; “And it seems to me that specifically for a fetus is [a non-Jew] killed, for it is able to go out into the world and live, but if it was born as a nefel, and cannot live…”
Minhat Hinuch does not clarify his comment, but it is at least plausible to argue that he understood the abortion prohibition to apply only to those fetuses that are already viable. If so, the American standard might fall within the parameters he assumes, and not violate Jewish law.
I grant there are at least three grounds upon which to disagree. First, Minhat Hinuch might have meant only to exclude a nefel from the prohibition, since it will never be viable. A fetus, which will likely become viable if we do not interfere with its gestation, might not be included in that exception. It would, however, allow abortion of any fetus with such significant issues that the doctors can be sure the fetus will never come to viability.
Second, Minhat Hinuch is only one authority, and others clearly extend the Talmudic prohibition of abortion to all fetuses. R. Moses Feinstein, for example, assumed that abortion was murder, and that the Jewish right to abort babies to save the mother was a leniency granted by Jewish law. That, too, is not the majority position, but it counterbalances this comment of Minhat Hinuch’s.
Third, Jews might oppose Roe v. Wade for other policy reasons, such as the impact they see it having on society and its sense of the sanctity of human life. Even if Jewish law does not oppose the types of abortions US law currently condones, reasonable people might see it as wrong or damaging to society.
I am not writing, then, to claim that Jews should have no problems with Roe. Rather, I am pointing out a source that might open up the option of not opposing Roe, as had seemed to me required until now. This comment of the Minhat Hinuch seems useful and interesting because it opens up room to allow that, at least in its most obvious aspects, Roe is not an example of American society parting company with the value system of Judaism.