A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
JULY 9, 2023

(JTA) — The abortion debate is often portrayed as a clash between religious beliefs on the pro-life side and secular or humanist convictions on the pro-choice side. Indeed, lawmakers and activists have often invoked God in enacting state bans on abortion since the Supreme Court, in last year’s Dobbs decision, struck down a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Some clergy and faith groups, however, including a number of Jews, are pushing back. In efforts to overturn these restrictions, they have been pressing a legal strategy claiming that abortion bans violate their religious liberty. In Kentucky, a case brought by three Jewish women argues that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their religious beliefs about when life begins and protecting a mother’s life. In Indiana, a suit brought by Hoosier Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths demands exemptions from the state’s abortion ban for people whose religions support abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.jta.org/2023/07/09/ideas/a-legal-scholar-sizes-up-the-religious-argument-against-abortion-bans


USA – The loss of abortion access demands a day of collective mourning

One year into the reversal of Roe v. Wade, it is clear that forced birth takes lives

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
June 22, 2023

The one-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision — the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended federal protections on our Constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion access — arrives this Shabbat, on June 24.

Jews must mark this day as a time of collective mourning for all those whose lives were taken from them because the government stripped them of their right to abortion access.

Continued: https://forward.com/opinion/551585/dobbs-anniversary-collective-mourning-abortion-access/


USA – The Anti-Abortion Movement Is More Conspiracy-Addled Than Ever

From rampant antisemitism to groomer panic, pro-life activists are knee-deep in the far-right fever swamp.

Audrey Clare Farley
December 13, 2022

The “pro-life” movement has gone full groomer. Scroll the Twitter feed of the movement’s darling, Live Action founder Lila Rose, and you’ll find as many recent posts about the sexualization of children as you will see missives that are singularly about abortion. Take a gander at the feed of Students for Life, and you’ll find people calling Planned Parenthood staff “groomers.” Turn the television channel to EWTN, a staunchly anti-abortion Catholic network and the largest religious broadcast in the world, and you’ll find hosts decrying Disney’s “transgender grooming” of kids.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/169461/anti-abortion-movement-antisemitic-conspiracy


‘Theocratic’ US abortion bans will violate religious liberty, faith leaders say

The anti-abortion side has monopolized arguments based on religion. But some say their faith supports the right to choose

Melody Schreiber
Thu 2 Jun 2022

Misha Sanders was starting over. She had just left an abusive relationship, and she was in her first semester of seminary, all while caring for her child, a teenager with a pressing health problem.

That’s when she found out she was pregnant. Sanders took misoprostol and mifepristone, the two drugs known collectively as the abortion pill, to end the pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/abortion-bans-violate-religious-liberty


History shows that the First Amendment should protect abortion

Antiabortion activists have long sought to prevent this.

Perspective by Rachel Kranson
May 12, 2022

A leaked opinion revealed that the Supreme Court is potentially poised to reverse the long-standing legal precedent that established a constitutional right to abortion under the 14th Amendment’s right to privacy. That has left champions of abortion rights wondering about other legal avenues that could ensure reproductive freedom. Might the Constitution guarantee abortion access as a First Amendment, religious right?

Many Americans are surprised by the notion that a religious tradition could permit or even mandate the termination of a pregnancy. They assume all religions endorse the conservative Christian view that life begins at conception, rendering abortion akin to murder.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/12/first-amendment-could-save-abortion-rights/


USA – Religious abortion rights supporters fight for access

Holly Meyer, Associated Press
Nov. 28, 2021

On the day the Supreme Court hears arguments in a Mississippi abortion ban case, Sheila Katz plans to be at a nearby church.

It is where the Jewish organization she leads is helping to host a morning interfaith service in support of abortion rights. That gathering, and a planned rally outside the court, are among the ways the National Council of Jewish Women and like-minded faith groups are challenging the erosion of abortion access in the U.S.

Continued: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2021/11/28/religious-abortion-rights-supporters/8786118002/


Not All Religious People Oppose Abortion

Nov. 18, 2021
By Sarah Seltzer

Nearly 30 years ago, my mother was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the 1992 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. It was a pivotal moment for abortion rights at the Supreme Court, which was about to hear arguments in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Though she left me at home, the words on her sign — “Every child a wanted child” — made an impression. So did the fact that the buses to Washington were chartered by our synagogue. When she returned, I wore the neon pink “Choice” hat she’d bought to my classroom at Jewish day school and began to spread the word.

Continued:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/opinion/abortion-rights-judaism.html


The Jewish Women Leading the Resistance in the U.S. Battle Over Abortion

The Jewish Women Leading the Resistance in the U.S. Battle Over Abortion
As the focus on Roe v. Wade increases with the looming addition of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, many volunteers say they are motivated by Jewish values and attitudes toward abortion, which differ from those of conservative Christianity

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen (New York)
Oct 10, 2018

NEW YORK – Access to abortion in the United States has become more limited in recent years, increasingly restricted by state laws even though it became a constitutionally protected right in the landmark decision Roe v. Wade 45 years ago.

At the forefront of countering that trend is a little-known network of volunteers, many of them Jewish women, who are motivated by their faith and commitment to the idea that women need to be able to control their own reproductive choices.

Continued: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-jewish-women-leading-the-resistance-in-the-u-s-battle-over-abortion-1.6545400