Toras HaChaim: A New Torah Column

It has often been assumed that this debate is fundamentally centered around the very question of whether a fetus is considered to be a full nefesh or not.

The reason one receives the death penalty for killing someone is because of middah k'neged middah, measure for measure. When one violates a prohibited act, they receive exactly that which they inflicted upon someone else.

As a fetus grows and develops, it's possible that it becomes human, or at least more human, even if that is not originally the case when it is first conceived as a zygote.

The goal of this column is to help you think about the spectrum of a topic in Torah and see the truth within every opinion of the sugya.