This volume is the first attempt at broad and deep research from a gender perspective into the halakhic attitude towards abortion. With the argument that halakhah reflects the male outlook and the consequent gender biases taken as its starting point, it examines the influence of gender concepts on contemporary halakhic rulings about abortion, in light of bio-ethical, conservative, liberal, and feminist theories, as well as the ideas of feminist legal theory and the feminist critique of the reigning epistemology. The book analyzes the gender implications of the stringent halakhic rulings of the twentieth century and the way they construct women. It asserts that the halakhic stance that takes the ban on abortion as a Torah-based prohibition constricts the idea of the sanctity of life to biological terms only and thereby highlights the reduction of women to mainly an entity for reproduction. The research raises a number of questions that have never been asked before: How do the decision makers see the female essence in general, and specifically in the context of abortion? Where do the woman’s needs rank on the scale of the decision makers' considerations? Are women perceived as subjects with their own interests and will—or are these deemed irrelevant and appropriated for the benefit of the collective (the family, the Jewish people)? These questions serve as the foundation for the discussion in the present volume. Even though it deals mainly with abortion, I suggest that it be seen as demonstrating the masculine identity of the halakhic discourse in general.