It has been repeatedly stated, "New Testament does not mention abortion." The implication is that abortion either was not a big issue in the early Church or tolerated by early Christians. In 1992, Princeton scholar Michael Gorman made a presentation at Duke University challenging those assertions. Professor Gorman stated, "At the onset of this paper, it was noted that the New Testament does not speak about the abortion issue. Nonetheless, in the early Church, the life and teachings of Jesus, the gospel message and the Scriptures did speak to the abortion issue." Professor Gorman continued, "There was abundant testimony to what early Christians heard about abortion in the gospel message."

Early Church documents that did specially refer to abortion were Pro-Life. There were no support for abortion on demand and many early Christians merely adopted what was considered Jewish thought at the time. Gorman concluded, "Christian opposition to abortion was so universal and so integral to the Christian vision — as it had been to the Jewish — that its absence from the canon when it was closed in the late fourth century would be neither remarkable nor immediately noticeable."

Richard Nadler, writing under his Hebrew name Reuben-Lev ben Herschel, has now produced a masterpiece that explores the Jewish tradition dealing with abortion. Mr. Gorman's point is that much of early Christian thinking mirrored Jewish thought, and Richard Nadler's review of historic Jewish thoughts on abortion supports this thesis.

In the United States, Jews are the biggest supporters of abortion rights and many pious Jews will include David Feldman's book Martial Relations, Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish law in their library. Mr. Feldman's thesis was that abortion on demand was the historic rabbinic thought and, as Mr. Nadler notes, "Feldman's study is the best-known of the handful of books in English that survey traditional Jewish sources on the subject of feticide." This book went a long way to undermine the notion that Jewish opposed abortion on demand. By undermining the Jewish pro-life tradition, many pro-choice activists have been able to undermine much of Christianity Pro-life tradition as well.

In his book, Feticide and the Birth Cycle in Me'am Lo'ez, Mr. Nadler challenges Mr. Feldman's thesis. Mr. Feldman's case for abortion on demand is based on whether unborn child has any juridical personality in rabbinic law and if Jewish law actually allowed abortion on demand. As Nadler points out, rabbinic tradition do not support the notion that abortion on demand was historic Jewish tradition. And by demolishing Mr. Feldman own thesis, he also strengthens the claim of Pro-life Christians that opposition to unlimited abortion rights was also a Christian tradition. Both Jewish and Christians thoughts are bound together.

One key point that Mr. Nadler makes is that the fetus or unborn child does have a "juridical personality" independent of the mother. Mr. Nadler observed, "Judaism has issued ruling against induced abortion voluntary or involuntary, since the giving of the Torah." What may confuse the issue is that there was not just one basis in Jewish thought forbidding abortion, but ten! Nadler's point is that Rabbis may have disagreed on why abortion is wrong, but they did not dissent that abortion was wrong. You could find arguments to support that abortion was murder, that abortion wastes male seed containing potential human life, abortion deprives the community something of value, or that abortion violated the obligation to multiply the earth. While many Rabbis debated why abortion was wrong, they did not disagreed that abortion was wrong.