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it worldly matters?! All the more reason that you should go to study
with him!”

  In his work Chorev (Chap. 7, dealing with the prohibitions of
suicide and of endangering oneself and with the mitzvah of looking
after one’s physical health) Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch zt”l, writes:
“Be aware that neither your body, nor your abilities, nor your brief
existence here on earth belong to you… they are given to you to use
as a creative utensil, as a means of fulfilling your obligations. You
are therefore duty bound to use your body, as well as all the other
gifts with which you have been endowed, solely in accordance with
G-d’s wishes and His order. But to destroy, to negate or to finish
off this utensil…Heaven forbid that you do that…For Hashem will
demand a terribly severe accounting from you of that which is your
most precious possession… Hashem will demand your lost life blood
from you…All this is Hashem’s decree… You may not even make the
slightest blemish in your body...the slightest weakness or ruination…
is tantamount to partially murdering yourself.” This may possibly
apply to non-Jews as well.

  The Chazon Ish (Igros 1,136) writes: “And for myself, I consider
making natural efforts in regard to [preserving] one’s health to be
a mitzvah and an obligation and as one of the obligations towards
perfecting the human form that the Creator has imprinted in the laws
governing the ordering of His world.” The Rambam, however, writes
in Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah that guarding one’s health is [part of ] the
mitzvah of ‘You shall follow in His ways’ (see Devarim 10:12, 11:22).
According to this, it is forbidden to sell drugs to a non-Jew.

   ɳ	 Summary and conclusion

It is forbidden to assist a non-Jewish woman in having an abortion
performed, and it is a mitzvah to counsel her and encourage her not
to abort.

Enabling a Non-Jewess to Abort 2                                         469
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