Unlimited Abortions in the Holy Land? | Sandi Shoshani

Producer (00:00):

Hey folks, producer Spencer here. This program was recorded in February of 2023. It references Mark’s trip to Israel a few weeks prior. This of course, is long before the Hamas terrorist attacks that unfolded in October. With that in mind, please enjoy the program.

Mark Harrington (00:15):

I’ve just returned from Israel and I’m bubbling over with all kinds of information, including a current update on the status of the abortion debate in the Holy Land. I learned a whole lot and today on the program, you’ll get to hear about it.

(00:43):

Well, hello friends. Mark Harrington here. You’re listening to your radio activist on the Mark Harrington show. You can pick us up on all the popular podcasting platforms and all the social media websites, Instagram, Facebook, and the rest. And if you’ve been following me on social media, I just had a trip to Israel with my wife and also an organization called Tom Short Campus Ministries and in future programs, I’m going to be kind of discussing about my visit and how that impacted me. I will say this, I’m going to be 63 years old and I have to say this was probably the most impactful time of my life. I mean, going to Israel and the Holy Land, I exhort everyone listening and watching to make that a priority at least once in your lifetime, if not more. And I’m certainly interested in returning someday to the land of Israel.

(01:48):

But today what I wanted to do because is to talk about how the anti-abortion issue fits into the discussion internationally and talking about Israel. Because when I went to Israel, I had nine days of touring, but I contacted a pro-life organization, probably the most prominent pro-life group in the state of Israel because I wanted to get an understanding of what’s going on there. Obviously as an American pro-life leader, it’s not just about the United States, it’s about the worldwide issue and how we can end abortion worldwide. So I always want to learn something about where I’m going when I travel. And in keeping with that, I made it a time to visit with one of those leaders and she’s with us today. And her name is Sandy Shoshi and she’s the National Director of Pro-Life Israel. And the organization’s website you can check it out at, and I’m going to spell it. It’s B-E-A-D-C-C-H-A-I m.com. And I’m going to try to pronounce this, but Beha is the best I can do. But if you go to the website, B-E-A-D-C-H-A, im.com, you’ll see what this organization is doing in Israel. So Sandy, thanks for coming on the program. Modern technology is wonderful. We can talk to you. You’re halfway across the world. It’s 4:00 PM in Israel where it’s 9:00 AM here in the United States. We’re just really excited for you to be on the show today.

Sandi Shoshani (03:43):

Thanks, mark. It was good to see you in Jerusalem and it’s good to see you again now.

Mark Harrington (03:48):

Well, hopefully we can become friends over time. I’m looking forward to continuing our relationship. So when I was in Israel, we met at the Olive Tree Hotel, which is where our tour stayed, and we discussed things and I kind of want to just go back and fill in people as to what I learned. I want to know, and I think our listeners and viewers want to know what’s going on in Israel. I’ll say this, I really had not been keeping up on what’s going on in Israel as relates to abortion. I mean, I’m focused primarily here in the United States. There’s been a lot going on here in the US of course with the overturning of Roe versus Wade. But as I knew I was coming to Israel, I wanted to contact you because I was really interested in what’s happening. And so we made time to meet. And I guess the place to start is just explain if you would, what your organization, Israel Pro-life or Pro-life. Israel. It’s pro-life, Israel, right?

Sandi Shoshani (04:51):

Israel pro-life.

Mark Harrington (04:53):

Israel pro-life. Alright. What’s you’re doing in Israel?

Sandi Shoshani (04:59):

Well, first of all, I know some of your viewers are going to think how could there be abortion in Israel? The Holy Land. Exactly. And I know it. And I just want to say that our government, because we have national health insurance, our government actually funds free abortions. A woman has to go through a committee to have the abortion, but 99.6% of the time that she applies for that free abortion, she’s going to get permission to have it. And then the abortions are not in clinics like they are in the US private, they’re in government hospitals. And so you could be having a birth and having an abortion in the same place at the same time. I mean two women. And so that’s how abortion is in Israel. And it’s a major, I almost said crime, but it is in the sense because our government is funding, the government is allowing, the government is affirming and that the abortions and the abortionists are in the same hospitals as the birth.

(05:55):

So this is really a tough situation for us because it’s just so normal. And Mark, when you were in Israel, we talked about it. It’s kind of like doing a tummy tuck or doing something to your nose because the government also funds those things. Also, IVF is funded, so it makes it all very legitimate, very normal, very main place. And so what Ba Em is or Pro-life is doing is giving women an alternative. The subtitle of our name is Protecting the Mother and the Child because we don’t say that we’re against abortion. What we say is we are pro women.

(06:35):

Why? Because I want to give her a choice to choose life. I want to give her that opportunity. I want to give her the possibility to choose life for her child. And if I can say a bit more, and I’m sure many people who are watching now know that when a woman is pregnant and in crisis, maybe she didn’t plan it, maybe she didn’t want it. Maybe it’s bad timing. Maybe she has another baby who’s three months old now and she got pregnant and she’s just shocked. Maybe she was single and maybe she went to a bar and didn’t even know who the guy is. I don’t know. But it’s very frightening to be in an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. And so we are here in Jerusalem and all over Israel to give her the opportunity to have new hope, to have a chance to choose life, to give her that hope, to give her that love.

Mark Harrington (07:27):

Yeah, I want to talk about that. That is one of the things that shocked me when I asked you what’s the status of abortion in Israel. First of all, when I found out that they’re conducting or committing the abortions in hospitals, that to me was a mind blowing thought because in the United States, it’s opposite. They don’t do ’em in hospitals, they do ’em in standalone abortion facilities. So that was number one. Number two, when you talked about a committee that the woman has to petition, I guess, to get permission to have the abortion, that committee’s in the hospital, it’s not the government. I mean it’s just somebody in the hospital. They get together and say, and they rubber stamp it and say, have the abortion. It’s two doctors very different than the United States.

Sandi Shoshani (08:12):

Yeah, it’s two doctors, a nurse and a social worker. It’s with hospital. Yeah, they’re

Mark Harrington (08:15):

Very, very different in the us. And that you said that it really is a non-issue or non debate. There is really little debate over abortion in Israel. Again, a shocker to me because I figured in a country that is so religious where you have the three monotheistic religions based, or at least there with Islam, Christianity and Judaism, you would expect to be a hot debate on abortion. But that’s not the case. And again, that was something that was news to me. And I think many people listening would say, wow, that seems unusual. You would think that it would be something that would be very much debated, but it’s not. And so I think when I was pondering all of this, I thought, wow, people need to be assisting your organization to really move the needle in Israel. So let me ask you this question. You mentioned what the current status of the law is. I think we get that. I asked you about the pro-abortion movement, and I mean, is there one, I mean here in the US and around the world, planned Parenthood is really the main player. Is that the case in Israel?

Sandi Shoshani (09:42):

I wouldn’t say that there’s a movement. I would say that there are people who are very pro-abortion, but there doesn’t really need to be a movement so much because the government is funding. That debate just doesn’t exist. When we do, let’s say we put up a giant billboard on the highway five times, and then of course people on media will complain and I’ll be interviewed and people will misquote. But really our goal mark is to offer the help. It’s to offer the alternative to choose life. So we’ve actually, in 2016, we won an award for service to women in Israel’s health because we offer that kind of help. We offer a woman everything she needs from her full year. And I want to speak again to the Americans. You are offering medical services in your pregnancy clinics. They’re primarily medical here in Israel. All medical is free.

(10:37):

So the woman is coming in with her ultrasound picture to our office. She doesn’t need us to give her any free medical because all of her medical is already given to her. So our goal then is to provide humanitarian here, and we really need to fund her. And by the way, the statistic here is that almost half 48% of the abortions are married couples. And it’s very different, very different. Less than 10% are young girls under 18. We’re talking about people who are struggling to make ends meet people who really don’t know how to manage anymore. And of course, in the orthodox populations, people are having 10, 12 children and some of those people are coming to us. Utterly poor living. I just read one of our case studies today. One of the mothers lives in two tiny rows with her eight children, and her husband’s not making any money because he’s studying Jewish law in a Talmudic place, which is honorable for them. And I actually met her husband and he does circumcision ceremonies, and he could be paid well, but he said, no, it’s what they call here in Israel, and it’s a blessing for me to do that for free. So they’re utterly poor and many times we just have to help people because they couldn’t have another child. I mean, they could not.

Mark Harrington (11:59):

My guest is Sandy Shoshi and she’s with Israel pro-life. And you can go to the website, B-E-A-D-C-H-A-I m.com or beha. I’m going to butcher that again, but I’m doing my best to find out more. Sandy, as I’m hearing you and listening to you, I’m thinking to myself really, since there is no political solution in Israel regarding abortion, we’re in the United States, we’re still in the fight. I mean, we have an opportunity to outlaw abortion. We can restrict abortion with the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Things are very different here. But in Israel, there, Israel, there is no political solution, at least on the horizon. Seems to me what you’re doing is everything you should, and that is rescue children and rescue women, obviously. But let me ask you this, and we talked about this as well. So in a country that is Jewish and Muslim and Christian, how are people even having abortions then? I mean when I asked you, because Muslims are opposed to abortion. We have Muslims in the United States when we talk to them on the streets or on a campus, they’re against abortion generally, and so are most Jews. How is it then that there not right at the numbers You are that mark

Sandi Shoshani (13:26):

Not right. In other words, the Muslims are seriously against abortion. And I’ve been in the Knesset to meet with various Knesset members in the past, and the Muslims are against abortion. And yet perhaps some people know this, if a single Muslim girl would become pregnant, not always, but sometimes her life is in danger because it’s what’s called honor killing. One of our young moms actually was murdered by her brothers. I’m very sorry to say. Another boyfriend of one of our young moms was murdered by the brothers of the woman. You can be very dangerous. And we also provide housing. Of course, we have an apartment in one of our cities where we have branches all over Israel and in one of our cities we have a five room apartment near the beach in a lovely quiet neighborhood so that we can house the moms who need housing or to be really sheltered and hidden. Yeah,

Mark Harrington (14:21):

I want to pause here for a moment. If I might really emphasize this point here in the United States, we hear about honor killings in the Middle East and generally in Muslim countries, not in Israel. We don’t hear about those very often. So when you told me that story again, shocking. Shocking. These women in Israel are under threat of their own life. If they choose not to abort is what you’re telling me. That is not the case in the United States. So a woman that chooses life just think of what they have to go through or is thinking about choosing life, what they’re up against. And you guys are in the thick of that. I want people to just understand that I don’t think we get it.

Sandi Shoshani (15:10):

It is pretty hard here, mark, in that sense. There’s also sometimes the women leave. We had one woman leave her country of Turkey and come and live in Israel, and then we moved her later to Denmark, and then she moved to the States finally. I mean, she really had to leave her family. She had to sag, went to study. Another woman had to cut off

Mark Harrington (15:28):

Contact to had the baby.

Sandi Shoshani (15:30):

She had the baby. So I’m saying she had the baby

Mark Harrington (15:32):

She life. Yeah,

Sandi Shoshani (15:33):

She chose life. I mean, in the Jewish sector, you don’t have honor killing, but the woman might be from an ultra-Orthodox family and be single and be utterly ashamed or be ostracized by her orthodox community. It’s not a situation that’s simple. That being said, there are women who are willing to make the initial sacrifice of family, at least during pregnancy and then afterwards say, look, I’ve had the child and now I’m going to have this child for the rest of my life. Parents choose to be in a relationship or not. And oftentimes after the birth, the grandparents turn around and say, yes, we want a relationship with you. I’ve seen that many times. But the woman has to be very brave. And of course then you just have the situations where marriages are falling apart or today I saw the situation of a girl who was divorced and became pregnant by her. So embarrassing and difficult, but she chose life. She chose life.

Mark Harrington (16:33):

Now, having said all that, how do you reach these women? I know that you guys have centers around the country. Explain a little bit how you would go about trying to reach these women in a country where abortion is normalized.

Sandi Shoshani (16:46):

So we don’t reach them, they reach us. We advertise very heavily on Google, a lot of keywords on Google. We advertise. Most of our clients arrived to us either by Google, Facebook, or Well, I did have, as I said, billboards. I had 450 buses all over Israel. The entire side of the bus was advertising. I did radio advertising. I’ve done a lot of advertising, but primarily it’s the Google and the social media. And we work with the welfare department. And so oftentimes the welfare department will refer the women to us. And in one of the cities in Israel, they actually provide our distribution center and our office space. And then the social workers in that very poor city will refer the women who are considering abortion because of finance or because of broken lives or because of broken marriages. They refer those women to us so that the women will choose life.

(17:41):

And I really love that. I love being able to say, here you are here. We’re going to provide everything you need for your baby. Our project is called, by the way, operation Moses. So you look at our website and you see what is Operation Moses. It’s providing my sponsors around the World sponsorship program, like the UNICEF sponsorship program where you know the baby and mob that your sponsor have for a full year and you get letters about them updates and you’re able to pray for that family. So you support them both financially and through prayer. So it’s exciting to be able to save those lives by supporting with hope and practical help the moms.

Mark Harrington (18:20):

Amen. My guest is Sandy Shoshi and she’s with Israel Pro-Life or Baha Heim. And you can find out more by going to B-E-A-D-C-H-A-I m.com. And Sandy, I want to ask you, I want to shift a little bit here and talk about politics. I know that that’s probably not something you really want to discuss, but I think Americans need to understand what’s going on in Israel regarding not just abortion politics, but also politically speaking. I’ve been trying to brush up before, and actually when I went there and now that I’ve left, I want to stay up on Israeli politics. I think it matters. But you said earlier that it’s not an issue politically. In other words, the Knesset hardly ever discusses it, if you would. I mean, why is it that there’s no discussion in the country that suffered the Holocaust? I went to ya ham, that was part of our tour, which is the Israeli museum on the Holocaust. I’ve been to the Washington DC Holocaust Museum, and it just was just utterly ironic that you have this Yaha Holocaust museum in Israel in Jerusalem talking about the Holocaust. Yet it is occurring in Israel again without much being done about it. So if you would give us why it is that the country is not dealing with it politically. And then I have one other question about the current situation.

Sandi Shoshani (19:52):

Okay, first of all, mark, most of the Israelis don’t consider the baby a human being until the baby emerges. The head is out and the court is cut. That’s Israeli law. We’re talking about Israeli law. The baby is not a human being until the head emerges and the court is

Mark Harrington (20:08):

Cut. And what is that based on? What do they base that on?

Sandi Shoshani (20:12):

I can’t answer that question. I don’t have an answer. Number two, there have been several TV programs about a recipe for a perfect baby and a perfect child. And people think, and I’m not exaggerating, many Israelis think that it’s wrong to bring a baby into the world if he will not have a perfect situation. In other words, two parents enough money, full health. For example, in the us, if a baby might have, and this is a true story, if a baby would have a hole in its heart and a clubfoot in Israel, the parents are told to abort in America, the doctors would say, no problem. We’ll take care of that surgically after birth. And Israel is number one in the world of prenatal testing, but they also recommend abortion 75% of the time. Whereas the US as the reverse statistic, they would recommend abortion 25% of the time with a handicap. So what we’re looking for here is the perfect baby. And of course there are no, well, my grandchildren are the perfect babies, but besides my grandchildren are no perfect babies.

(21:21):

No. So also I want to say that we have a personal Knesset. As I said, I visited the Knesset numerous times. We actually had a partner of a businessman who funded us to do a proposal to the Supreme Court in Israel last year. Last year ago March, to stop abortion at point of viability, which in Israel’s 24 weeks. And we were thrown out of court, we lost the case and we had to pay court fees. And what did they say? They said a committee. The laws exist and the committee already exists to examine late term abortions and there is no reason to change the status quo. I say that I get tears in my eyes because we want to change the status quo. And also right now, I don’t know how many of you watching what know’s really politics, but we don’t really have representation.

(22:07):

We have what’s a party system. And so a party gets in and the party has to hold their position in the government. And so right now our government is Mr. Netanya, which is what’s called plus many, many ultra religious parties. And you would think that they would curb abortion. But indeed, the Minister of Health, it makes me so sad to say this, that’s why I hesitated the Minister of Health, he’s now out of office, but when he was in office in December, he passed our new health budget. And in that budget, he actually, an ultra-Orthodox man increased funding for abortion again. And the last time that happened was ultra also an ultra-orthodox man. And all I can say is it’s just not an issue for them. It’s just not an issue.

Mark Harrington (22:54):

There’s not any political pressure or constituency enough of one to make them change their ways. Right? I mean, in the United States, there is a movement that keeps pressure on our politicians to pass pro-life legislation. That’s not the case unfortunately in Israel. And I wanted to ask you, beyond that, this current discussion or debate in the country, and I don’t want to get too far into the weeds, and I don’t know if we talked about this at all when I was with you in Israel, but currently they’re trying to reform the laws regarding the Supreme Court. Supreme Court has been similarly to the United States. It’s become more liberal making laws that usurp the role of legislature in Israel. There’s a lot of protests. In fact, the day I left there were 70,000, apparently 70,000 protestors came to the Knesset. Some of ’em broke in apparently occupied some space and so forth. If you would explain what’s going on there, I think that has implications in Israel and across the world as it relates to your democracy.

Sandi Shoshani (23:56):

So our government, they actually paid no heat to all those demonstrators. And yesterday they passed the law giving government more, say more, weight, more, I want to say it’s almost like a scale. And they threw everything off scale. Now the government, the party which is in the government now has more power than the courts. And so we’ve really kicked off out of balance our checks and balance systems. And

Mark Harrington (24:24):

Are you in support of that? Does that have implications further say my

Sandi Shoshani (24:27):

Personal opinion? Yeah. I feel deeply troubled. I feel deeply troubled. One of the reasons is because the party now that’s in the majority in the government is considering the government is ultra Orthodox. And number one, as a person, I’m a Jewish person who believes in the Messiah, Yeshua and Jesus. And I feel that this is not a good thing for us. I feel that our freedom of speech of pre religion is at risk. I don’t even want to go into all of the details, but they’re trying to do very interesting things, stop train repairs of the Sabbath. And I saw that they don’t want people to bring bread into the hospitals Now during Passover, which is not very fair for the Arabs, of course, trying to change the status quo of those who can make immigration to Israel. It used to be if you had a Jewish grandparent, they’re trying to take that right away, trying to make it impossible to pray in certain

Mark Harrington (25:20):

Ways. Why wouldn’t he want Jews to come back to Israel?

Sandi Shoshani (25:23):

They do, but they only want those who follow religion in the way that they do. In some ways, I feel like it’s a throwback to the Pharisees and Sadducees 2000 years ago. And as I read the Bible, and I’ll tell you what, mark, I have great hope because God never stopped being in control. And it says in Isaiah, God is our lawmaker. God is our judge. God is our king and no matter what, and God is our savior, and no matter what the government does, God is on the throne.

Mark Harrington (25:57):

Amen. Well, that’s a good summary because I am still trying to understand Israeli politics. It’s going to take me some time, but I was curious about the current situation and I appreciate you taking that time to explain it. I was with an evangelical ministry there for a week, and one of the goals of course is that the Jews would come back, come to Jesus, right? I mean that’s kind of the goal. And anything that would put roadblocks in the way of that is not a good thing. And so it’s helpful to get that perspective from you. I would’ve figured that reigning in the Supreme Court, which may have gone outside of what it’s supposed to be doing would be a good thing because that’s what we do here in the United States. We try to limit the ability for the courts to make law. We have a check and balance.

(26:47):

And for 200 plus years, it’s served us fairly well. But it looks like they may be overreaching here a bit. Let me just ask you, this’ll probably be the final question. I know you got a busy day, but we talked about activism briefly when I was in Israel with you and created equal, we are an activist organization. We’d go to college and high school campuses. We go out onto the street, we talk to people using abortion, victim photography and so forth. And I asked you how that would come across. How would that work in Israel? What would the reception be if we were to say, take a group of us and go out to Tel Aviv for an example? I don’t know. I mean, just theoretically, if that were to be the case and is there anything like that happening in Israel?

Sandi Shoshani (27:33):

There’s a group in Haifa that goes out sometimes on the streets, and I have got out with flyers. I’ve got up with tables and baby models. And what I think is I don’t really care how they receive it. I need people to be educated. We need to do that. We need to get out and give people the information. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to pressure a woman to have an abortion and not give her all of the information that she needs to know exactly what she’s doing. She needs to know baby development. She needs to know the consequences of the abortion. Women are intelligent people and they have the right to make an educated decision to choose life not pressured, not a knee-jerk response because she’s so afraid or somebody threatened her. People need to know the facts. And so I’m thrilled with the prospect of you coming here. Mark, somebody’s listening and wants to come and visit Israel and go out and educate the public about the consequences of abortion on the mother and the child because we are here to protect both of them.

Mark Harrington (28:31):

Amen. The Israelis don’t look kindly, outsiders coming into the country. I mean, you know that, especially evangelists for some reason. I would, again, that was another one of those wake up calls to me. I thought, wow, seems to me that they would be open to that because they have free speech laws. But apparently that’s not the case. And you also mentioned that you thought Israelis would basically yawn at our efforts because it’s such a, I guess, settled issue in the country where here it’s still a hot debate between pro-life and pro-choice. We often get very adverse reactions, some of them even violent in some cases, or they vandalize our materials and our resources and our signs and so forth. Yeah, I’d be interested in seeing how that would go in Israel, and I’d love to work with anybody there to make it happen. Sandy, if you would, I wanted to take a moment and just give us some parting words from Israel to encourage our American pro-lifers here and give us some hope for your nation when it comes to the unborn and even beyond. That’s the more important thing, and that is the spreading of the gospel.

Sandi Shoshani (29:48):

Hope. There is great hope even saving one life. The Talmud says, he who saves one life has saved as if he saved the world. And I can thank God since I’ve been in Batam since 2006, we’ve saved about 5,000 lives. I can thank God there is always hope. And I would say, you know what? No matter what results you’re seeing, we’re serving a living God. We’re serving the king, and he wants us to continue to serve him with our voice. It says, get you up in a high mountain Zion. Say to the cities of Jew, to behold your God. That’s what we’re called to do with joy, and I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God to save both the Jew and the Gentile. So we just keep on speaking because we love God and it says in Corinthians, and we are compelled, we are motivated by the love of God.

(30:39):

We really have no ulterior motive. Our motive is to love God and serve man, and that’s what we’re called to do. So for me, it is all a win-win because you can never lose because you’re sharing the love of God with people that are really in quite a desperate situation. And I would just say to people that are listening, don’t be ashamed to help a woman choose life. That’s her best choice, and don’t be ashamed to help her get healing. We have people in our congregations, in our churches that have had abortions even years ago and they’re ashamed. And one of the things we offer is help and healing. And I think most of your centers in the US offer healing after loss of a baby, after abortion. Get that help. Find, help and find new hope because we have the God who forgives, who heals, and who wants to heal our hearts and our nations.

Mark Harrington (31:29):

My guest has been Sandy Shoshi and she’s with Israel pro-life, or I’m not even going to try it anymore.

Sandi Shoshani (31:38):

Hallelujah to life.

Mark Harrington (31:42):

Thank you for pronouncing it correctly. You can go to the website, I’m going to spell it again, B-E-A-D-C-H-A-I m.com. Sandy, thanks for being on the program. It’s been a blessing to hear from you and be encouraged for what’s going on in Israel and your work to save women and the unborn. Thanks for being on the show.

Sandi Shoshani (32:06):

Thank you, mark. God bless.

Mark Harrington (32:10):

So friends, here’s your call to action, and that is go to mark harrington.org and subscribe to the podcast if you like what you heard today about my discussions on abortion regarding the state of Israel. I’m going to be spending a little bit of time on some upcoming programs, hopefully with my good friend Tom Short from Tom Short Campus Ministries. You just talk about our visit to Israel overall and what we both learned on our tour. So you’ve been listening to your radio activist here on the Mark Harrington show. You can go to mark harrington.org to find out more. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America. Zip bless Scott.

Outro (33:01):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the culture war.