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(JTA) — The Jewish Telegraphic Company and our accomplice websites at 70 Faces Media have answered the query many instances through the years, a testomony to its persistence in political life and its significance to American Jews: What do Jews say about abortion?
After a brand new report that the Supreme Court docket reviewed a majority opinion in February that might overturn Roe v. Wade, the query is related but once more.
Right here’s what we all know: American Jews favor abortion rights, greater than some other non secular group, in keeping with public polling. And conventional Jewish legislation permits (and even requires) abortion in some circumstances, notably when the life or well being of the pregnant individual is at stake.
Meaning if the leaked Supreme Court docket ruling does turn into the legislation of the land, Jewish ladies in dozens of states will virtually actually turn into unable to entry care that they could effectively resolve is required religiously.
“What Jewish group would wish to proceed to stay in a spot the place they’re doubtlessly barred from following halacha (Jewish legislation)?” Ephraim Sherman, an Orthodox Jew and well being care skilled, wrote in JTA in 2019. “Is a group even allowed by halacha to proceed dwelling in such a spot?”
Liberal Jews in America have been advocating for reproductive rights so long as they’ve been contested — so, ceaselessly. Listed here are tales from 1967, pre-Roe; 1989, when American Jews attended a rally protesting calls to roll again abortion rights; and 1998, when Jewish teams responded to the homicide of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a New York abortion supplier who was killed simply after returning house from saying Kaddish for his father.
These teams have stepped up advocacy as threats to Roe v. Wade have mounted. The Nationwide Council of Jewish Ladies shaped Rabbis for Repro to carry abortion speak to synagogues and different Jewish areas; Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, the group’s scholar in residence, has articulated Jewish views on abortion in essays and on nationwide TV.
In the meantime, Orthodox Jews in America have shifted rightward in latest a long time. Our 2020 exploration of that shift means that one purpose it didn’t occur earlier was Republicans’ give attention to abortion within the Eighties, which didn’t resonate with Orthodoxy. However lately, the alignment of Orthodoxy and Republican politics has led to extra vocal participation by Orthodox Jews in abortion discourse.
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In 2019, when New York widened its abortion legislation, a number of Orthodox teams condemned the transfer. Some Orthodox ladies questioned why they’d oppose a change that made it simpler to comply with rabbinic recommendation. On the time, an Orthodox chief argued in a JTA essay that “rights” are the incorrect technique to speak concerning the Jewish stance on abortion.
“Blanket bans on abortion, to make certain, would deprive Jewish ladies of the power to behave responsibly in circumstances the place abortion is halachically required,” wrote the chief, Rabbi Avi Shafran. “And so, what Orthodox teams like Agudath Israel of America, for which I work, have lengthy promoted is the regulation of abortion by means of legal guidelines that typically prohibit the unjustifiable killing of fetuses whereas defending the proper to abortion in distinctive circumstances.”
An estimated quarter of American ladies can have an abortion by age 45, many Jews amongst them. We’ve revealed first-person accounts from a couple of of them: Right here’s one which our companions at Kveller, the Jewish parenting web site, revealed final yr, from a rabbi and mom who desperately wished the being pregnant she ended.
And right here’s a self-described “very Jewish” story from a rabbi who says she had an abortion “merely” as a result of she didn’t wish to be pregnant — a alternative that she says Jewish custom protects, too.
“If anybody tries to argue that abortion restrictions are justified below the prerogative of spiritual freedom, we are able to clarify that our non secular freedom calls for that we now have entry to abortion care when it’s wanted and wished,” wrote the rabbi, Rachael Cross.
And a longtime Jewish feminist, Barbara Dobkin, recalled how she helped a good friend get an unlawful abortion in 1966. “What concerning the disaster of shedding the proper to make choices about our personal our bodies?” she requested. “The place is the communal outcry about that?”
That outcry is being felt at this time, because the leaked Supreme Court docket opinion resonates throughout the nation. It stays to be seen whether or not the ultimate determination matches the draft; the court docket typically releases most of its rulings annually in June.
However we all know that authorized analysts are already envisioning a Jewish lady as the right plaintiff for a case difficult a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
We all know that the Nationwide Council of Jewish Ladies is planning a Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington, D.C., on Might 17 and that Jewish reproductive-rights advocates are planning for a post-Roe world.
And we all know that for Orthodox teams, the balancing act between backing Republicans and defending Jewish legislation and the proper to comply with it simply bought more durable.
We plan to cowl all of those angles, and extra, within the coming days. Thanks for turning to us on this second and others, and as at all times, please tell us what you wish to know.
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