By sheer coincidence, Daf Yomi readers have recently been studying a question that is making headline news: When does a fetus become a life? Earlier this month, Georgia enacted a "fetal heartbeat law," which prohibits abortion from the point where a fetus' heartbeat can be detected. Similar laws are likely to be enacted in Mississippi and Ohio. Meanwhile, Alabama passed an even stricter law, which prohibits abortion in almost all circumstances starting from the beginning of pregnancy.
The question of whether and when abortion is allowed under Jewish law is a complicated one. But when it comes to the specific issue of when a developing fetus is considered to be alive, we found a clear answer in Bekhorot 21b: "The formation of a fetus in a woman takes forty days." Before that time, a different Talmudic source says, the fetus is "like water," since it hasn't yet taken recognizable shape. As it happens, this definition fits well with the timing of the fetal heartbeat law, since a heartbeat can be detected around the sixth week of pregnancy.
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