Renunciation of chemical and biological warfare, and humane treatment for prisoners of war…are certainly marks of civilized peoples, but on a more fundamental level such matters are little different from a convention requiring cannibals to eat with knives and forks. “Civilized warfare” is inherently a self-contradiction.
–Rabbi David J. Bleich
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Jewish lifecycle rituals reflect a communal orientation, the democratic nature of traditions, the relationship between the biological and the social, and the inevitability of evolution and change.
Contemporary Jewish thinkers have expressed a wide range of opinions about the permissibility and parameters of euthanasia.
Most (but not all) rabbinic authorities consider "partial birth abortion" on the same terms as other abortions.