After carefully considering our options on what to do with our conjoined baby girls Rachel (Baby A) and Tal (Baby B), my wife and I have come to a conclusion by letting Judaism guide us to the right answer. We looked at various biblical and halachic sources to come to our conclusion.
In the second book of Samuel (2 Samuel 20:19-23) A man named Sheba ben Bichri had gone against King David, he then fled to Ephraim where King David’s people came after him to kill him. They were blocked from entering the city and told the people of Ephraim that they needed to hand over Sheba ben Bichri or the city would be destroyed. The people cut off Sheba ben Bichri’s head in order to save their homes. These people made a mistake, because (according to Sanhedrin 74a) you may not value one’s life to save your own or someone else’s since your life is not more important than anyone else’s. …show more content…
The man who is guilty pays a fine based on how much the fetus was worth and for the bystander’s medical bills. In a second scenario, same two men are fighting but this time, the pregnant woman who gets hurt dies and the man who is guilty gets the death penalty. Why did the man not get the death penalty when he caused the woman to miscarry and essentially killed a fetus you ask? Well, according to halachic code, a fetus is not a human life (yet), and, therefore, killing one does not cause the consequences for murder, since murder would be of a living human. The man got the death penalty in the second scenario because he killed the woman, a living person. Since our babies are out of the womb and living, killing one by detaching them would be considered murder since we would knowingly be cutting off the amount of blood needed to keep Rachel alive. Obviously, my wife and I do not want to be guilty of murder, and, therefore, cannot disconnect Rachel and