Abortion has gone too far in the USA. On demand, up to birth, will make even many pro-choicers cringe. This is why many pro-choicers have thrown up their hands and taken a pro-life position, even in the case of rape.
Such polarization may have been prevented if abortion access had some limits, as it does in Israel.
There are restrictions on access to abortion in Israel: only up to about 20 weeks, and a social worker must approve the woman's request.
Required social worker involvement means that there is no abortion-on-demand in Israel, with a few exceptions: "unnatural relations" - the woman is underage, and in the case of incest or rape.
Required social worker approval also means that some women will not even request an abortion as they know it will not be approved, for example, if a woman wants the baby, but her partner is pressuring her to abort, they both know that that social worker will deny approval in such a case, so the request in not even put forth.
That means that when you read that 98% of abortions are approved of by social workers in Israel, you are not seeing how many do not even make it to the social worker's file in the first place.
The requirement for social worker approval thus prevents many abortions from even being considered. It's real outcome is that it lowers the abortion rate.
Israel remains a family-oriented society, so pro-life efforts are spent on helping the woman and child.
Israel's position is one that no orthodox Jew can be happy with. It is too permissive. For the orthodox, abortion should only occur if the mother's life is threatened.
There are pro-life organizations "Be'ad Ha'im" (For Life) and "Efrat" which focus on preventing abortion even in this society, which already restricts it.
It is said that secular Israelis experiment with sex at a young age, but once they are in their early 20's, they marry. No orthodox Jew can be happy with that either, sex must only take place within marriage, but you do not feel that you have people living entire lives unmarried yet sexually active. As one colleague quipped, "I told my boyfriend that my family is religious and cannot take handle our relationship, we either have to marry or break up", and they married right after their army service at the age of 21.
Israel does not host the abortion-culture that American does at this time. You will not see abortion pushed on television shows in Israel. No one is trying to get recreational sex or abortion into the fabric of Israeli society, like Planned Parenthood does in the USA.
In Israel the family is accommodated, young men who enter the army because of the draft may already have kids, they are paid a higher stipend because of that. A higher stipend for a father in the Israeli army is one example of a pro-life society. You do not need abortion here like people feel they need it in the USA.
On another note, there is no need to fear pro-life activists when they declare that certain forms of birth control are immoral.
Orthodox Jews eschew certain forms of birth control as immoral. But they make no move to make them illegal, not in the USA, and not in the state of Israel. People can raise awareness on a subject without making something illegal.
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