Heartbeat: My Involuntary Miscarriage and ‘Voluntary Abortion’ in Ohio

At The Huffington Post, Tamara Mann chronicles her decision to terminate her 13-week-old pregnancy when a sonogram showed that the fetus was severely deformed. Because the fetus had a heartbeat, Mann discovered that her insurance deemed the procedure “an optional abortion.” Mann writes that the preoccupation “with the heartbeat” as a sign of life is not one found in own Jewish faith. “In Judaism, the dominant metaphor for life is not the heartbeat–it is the breath. In Genesis 2:7, God breathes life into man: ‘Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man become a living soul.'”

Read at The Huffington Post

© 2011 Religion & Politics