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Distorting Religion to Serve Abortion Rights
How many times have you seen the leaders of religions distorting the tenets of a religion to serve a political cause? Of course, they would never say their claims are political, but in the case of abortion, one Jewish community in Florida has decided that they can misrepresent Judaism to serve a greater cause: women’s rights and abortion. (I guess G-d’s laws don’t figure into a “greater cause.”) When I see any religious leaders choosing to meet a woke agenda, I am deeply disappointed and saddened to see the abuse of their positions of power, and the rabbi of L’Dor Va-Dor is no exception.
So what do we know about this congregation and Florida law:
A synagogue in Florida filed a lawsuit this week to challenge the state over a new law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks. Under current law, Florida allows abortions up to 24 weeks. Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach claims the new law, which has been signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and is set to take effect on July 1, violates the religious freedom rights of Jews.
The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Leon County Circuit Court, claims that the act ‘prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and this violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.’
The lawsuit also argues that religious minorities in Florida will be harmed and that the law will threaten Jews ‘by imposing the laws of other religions upon Jews.’
The explanation of “violating privacy rights” is nothing new in the discussion of abortion, but I have no idea which other religions are being imposed upon Jews.
You probably realize, however, that this congregation doesn’t fit neatly into any kind of recognized division of Judaism:
Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, which doesn’t belong to any denomination, defines itself as ‘an all-inclusive, universal, and rational approach to Judaism’ and ‘honors tradition, respects science, and celebrates spirituality.’
This mishmash of a description seems to be an effort to cover the “woke agenda,” but I have no idea which traditions they are referring to.
It is important to state that Judaism does not ban abortion, but allows it in extreme cases:
Therefore, traditional Jewish law holds that the preborn child has a right to life just as strong as the mother’s ― except when he or she poses an imminent danger to her life. The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of America, Rabbi Marvin S. Antelman, clearly stated the position of Jewish law on abortion when he said:
All major religions have their parochial and their universal aspects, and the problem of abortion is not a parochial one. It is of universal morality, and it is neither a Catholic problem, nor a Jewish problem, nor a Protestant problem. It involves the killing of a human being, an act forbidden by universal commandment.
Needless to say, committing abortion is a profoundly serious action.
But I want to return to Rabbi Barry and his Boca Raton/Boynton Beach congregation, and their misguided and distorted interpretation of Jewish law. We benefit from understanding the observance of halacha or Jewish law and its relationship to opting for abortion to understand the problem.
The issue is whether Jews can selectively choose to observe Jewish law and still have credibility in demanding that they expect others to do the same. For example, I can choose to observe the Jewish laws of keeping kosher, but if I choose not to work on the Sabbath, is it a legitimate demand or expectation for my employer to accept my decision? From my perspective, it is not.
The reason the selective observance of Jewish law is an issue is described in some detail here. This statement, however, gets to the crux of the matter:
This background brings us to the precise claims put forward by Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor. The complaint is somewhat jumbled, but buried in the pleading is a religious claim: Jewish women have some sort of religious obligation to obtain an abortion if the pregnancy threatens their health. This argument is premised on halacha, which, again, Reform Jews tend not to view as binding. So here is the crux of this post: if virtually every other facet of halacha is not binding on members of this congregation, how could it be that this one teaching on abortion is binding–so binding, that a state’s prohibition of that teaching actually substantially burdens the free exercise of religion?
The confusion of the synagogue’s claims gets even worse:
Stated differently, if a person’s religious beliefs view halacha as non-binding–that is, the person is not required to take a certain action to comply with the halacha–it is difficult to claim that a government prohibition of that action is itself a substantial burden of religion. And if a person treats 99.9% of halacha as non-binding–including far more deeply-rooted rules governing Kosher slaughter and sabbath observance–yet deems as binding the interpretation of halacha that affects abortion, I think the person’s sincerity can be challenged. To be precise, this person may sincerely believe that her religion allows–and perhaps even encourages–an abortion in such cases, but does not sincerely believe that religion compels this action such that the prohibition substantially burdens her exercise.
Professor Sherry Kolb brought even more clarity to the discussion:
If one wanted to have a chance of prevailing on a “religious abortion” claim, one would have to assert that one’s religion requires one to have an abortion rather than that it merely allows one to have one. If one’s religion requires an abortion, then the state law that prohibits abortion would plainly interfere with one’s ability to practice one’s religion. But when would anyone’s religion require an abortion?
* * * *
Apparently, Rabbi Barry Silver thinks that his woke agenda and that of his congregants legitimizes his manipulation of Jewish law. Unfortunately, his actions can influence the perceptions of Jews and non-Jews regarding Judaism and its many communities. I’m also saddened to know that Jewish leaders are not the only ones who choose to distort their religions in order to meet their political agendas.
Whenever possible, we need to protest these illegitimate claims and speak the truth. I anticipate that as some states determine their approach to prohibiting or legalizing abortion, some religious leaders will weigh in.
Count on it.
Published in Politics
I know several women in my age cohort who had abortions after Roe. That I am comfortable in their company and have trusted them with my children has no bearing on the moral assessment of what they did, nor do I make any claims to the state of their souls. Repentance and forgiveness are always possible, and I have hope that they will do the first and receive the second. I hope the same for myself.
If you’re worried that pro-lifers are going to insist on murder charges for women who obtain abortions, I think you’re ignorant of the typical Christian approach to sinners. There will be exceptions — those who call for temporal punishment — but, that isn’t how most Christians would approach this.
Now the doctors who go into the business of killing babies? That’s a topic that deserves consideration. I wouldn’t trust these sickos to clear my ear wax.
I thought that the Christian approach was to celebrate God’s grace toward repentant sinners, while recognizing that this does not affect temporal punishment for crime.
The woman hiring an abortionist to kill her baby is worse than the abortionist, in my view. I think that the sympathy that people seem to feel for these infanticidal mothers is misplaced.
For some portion, I’d consider crime of passion mitigation. For the doctors, it’s serial, cold-blooded pre-meditation. It’s that for some of the women, too, but all the doctors.
I think the enforcement issue for women runs into issues with self-aborting vs miscarriage. That’s arguably where I would say seeking punishment for women gets into some very uncomfortable territory for me.
Once it’s done, it’s done. There are thankfully very few unforgivable things. And I don’t count most instances of abortion to be in that category.
But they’re real people, Henry. People who should have had lives. Imagine you’d have had an older brother. Or your best friend never happened because mom was only in her junior year of college. It’s a real person with a real future that never happens.
I have to listen to the “rape and incest” small percentage brought up all the pro abortionist all the time. Never a lament for what aborted children may have meant to those around them. Sorry, just wanted to get that off my chest.
I knew I could rely on you, Jerry.
There is such a thing as invincible ignorance (women who are deprived of seeing an ultrasound by the abortionist may really not realize the full on wickedness of what they’re doing — especially young women who’ve been told their baby isn’t a real person (just a clump of cells) and don’t have your years of experience contemplating the issue). There are degrees of moral culpability.
I believe most Christians would completely disagree with you on the culpability of the woman versus the doctor. The doctor knows exactly what he/she is doing, having been trained in the science of medicine and human reproduction.
Sick.
I know they’re real people, my friend. I raised six kids, three adopted, and supporting orphanages has long been our family’s main charitable activity. I love children and would like many more to be born. I won’t argue with anyone who thinks that abortion at any point is wrong and shouldn’t be allowed. Had I the authority, I would restrict it to very early in pregnancy — considerably less than Roe’s first trimester.
But I also can not frame what I think is a compelling argument for outlawing abortion in the first very few weeks of gestation. I can’t provide a reason that I think outweighs a woman’s right to make a decision about what is still a very nascent human life. I know that people of faith can, but I’m not a person of faith.
I think my own position is closer to the national consensus. That isn’t a reason to support that position. It is, however, a reason to suspect that “abortion is murder” will not be a successful position to take when engaging in what I hope is a renewed national debate.
It seems to me — and perhaps to others — that there’s an untenable tension between “she’s a murderer” and “I’m okay with her watching my kids.” I think that tension comes from the fact that most of us don’t think a woman who had an abortion is really a “murderer,” and that the word is being pushed too far when applied to abortion (though I will concede that it’s the right word for abortion-at-the-moment-of-birth, which is a ghoulish and horrific practice).
I’m more interested in how we talk about this than in assigning degrees of moral blame to anyone. I want us to be able to discuss the topic, now that the Supreme Court has returned the matter to the states. I would like us to be able to reach a compromise that eventually reduces the number of abortions and begins to focus attention on responsible sex and parenting. I think that requires that we bridge the gap between “just a clump of cells” and “murder.”
I didn’t call her a “murderer.” That’s you (and probably Jerry). I said abortionists have made a career of killing children. If anyone deserves to be called a “murderer,” it’s the abortionist.
WC, that was me who called it murder. Sort of a murder for hire with two guilty parties.
That clump of cells, if given full gestation, will become a human. So it seems like a straight line that is pretty hard to work around.
And it’s big business. If they’re “pro choice”, then they wouldn’t care about crisis pregnancy centers that promote the other choice. But no, they’re being fire bombed by what I can only describe as sick abortion enthusiasts. They actively fight sonograms being shown to expecting mothers who might not make their preferred choice.
Wanna talk about not quite human…
I agree with you, it’s murder. That’s the correct word for the act of intentionally killing an innocent.
But, Henry called the woman who obtains an abortion a “murderer” so as to describe the impossibility of his preferred “compromise” if we acknowledge that abortion is murder. I reject the premise. I think there’s no compromise possible on describing the act of abortion as “murder,” but there are subtleties in assessing the culpability of the woman and therefore the “just” punishment for her, if any.
It’s the doctors making their career (and their living) off of killing babies who are the murderers. I would also prosecute professionals who mutilate gender confused individuals with drugs or surgery.
This seems to me to be splitting hairs more than a little. If performing an abortion is murder, then it seems that seeking out and paying for an abortion to be performed must be quite close to murder. And what of a woman who effectively performs her own abortion, for example by inducing a miscarriage?
If abortion is murder, than the young woman who pays for one is hiring an assassin to murder another person. I don’t see any way around that. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s productive to engage in such lexical gymnastics.
True, but I’m not whacko . . . I don’t think . . .
Who’s engaging in lexical gymnastics? How do you define “murder?” I’ve always thought the definition is: the intentional killing of innocents. That rules out “manslaughter” (accidental killing), “negligent homicide” (killing by acts of omission) and execution (killing of a person convicted of serious criminal offense after having received due process). What moral category does abortion fall into in your telling?
What I’m not saying is the woman isn’t hiring a hit man. My point is: even a newly conceived baby is a) alive (it starts growing immediately upon sperm penetrating ovum), and b) human (its parents are human, so it can’t be anything else), and c) totally innocent of the circumstances of its conception, and d) a unique and irreplaceable person deserving of a chance at life. So killing it is technically, morally, and in every “conceivable” way — murder.
However, my secondary point is the woman (unlike the doctor) may be ignorant of the above (and likely is if she’s particularly young, having been maleducated to believe it’s “just a clump of cells” and it’s “her body, her choice.”). She may be fearful of her circumstances and feel her “choices” are limited (especially if all the crisis pregnancy centers around her have been torched). She may even be coerced by her family (I’ve heard of this from pro-life activists on the front lines outside abortion clinics) or the sperm donor. There are mitigating factors that apply to the woman’s culpability that simply don’t to the abortionist, who knows precisely what he/she is doing, is volitional about it, and is even profiting materially from it.
This isn’t playing around with language. It’s an insistence on the accurate use of words and the acknowledgement that there are subtleties that apply to the determination of punishment due to the woman, if any (someone important once said under similar circumstances (the murder of an innocent), “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.”). Not so much to the assassin.
As usual, no matter how hard fought a victory is, the actual result relies on enforcement. We’ve seen extreme (!) dereliction of duty from the US Attorney General (border enforcement, judicial tampering, etc.) to local District Attorneys (no bail, prison releases, failure to prosecute violent crimes, etc.) If your party disagrees with a law, just act like it doesn’t exist. I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot of that no matter what states sign into law. How will states ever be able to confirm that abortions are only performed in the first trimester? All parties to an abortion have an interest in ignoring the first trimester thing. Not like there’s anything sleazy or dishonest about the industry so far.
Stray thought on California, which will become a pregnancy destination where Chinese women will fly in at the last minute to give birth, while Utah women will fly in at the last minute to not give birth.
I agree, Joker. Why start following the law now? I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that illegal abortions are happening in some states, simply because it’s inconvenient to travel.
And another thing! (heh) What mitigates in favor of the woman is that the newly conceived baby is invisible and undetectable to the five senses to her — especially if she is denied the opportunity to see an ultrasound. As I said elsewhere, according to my pro-life activist colleague, if women are shown an ultrasound, even if the baby is small enough to only detect a heartbeat, something like 80 to 85% of them change their minds and forgo the abortion. Which is why pro-aborts don’t want women to see ultrasounds.
But, the invisibility and size and stage of development, doesn’t make the “fetus” any less of a person. It is both a scientific and moral fact that human life begins at conception.
That’s an incredible result on seeing the ultrasound, and I am glad to hear its that effective. Again, why would “pro choice” advocates oppose showing mom a picture of her baby – encouraging one of those choices that they say they stand for. Much about the abortion industry is designed to pretend that the fetus is not baby, or that there will be zero long term consequences, or that ordinary human instincts don’t kick in with regard to pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood must be pretty profitable to let them get away with lies and distortions that Big Pharma could only dream about. The kind of hard sell that shut down cigarette advertising and other products because they might make the product attractive to underage is just part of the actual mission statement of PP. Juul, eat your heart out.
I think the problem is, WC, that even though you can separate the naming from the typical punishment for murder, HR may be having a more difficult time with it.
To call it murder means it needs to be punished the way we punish murder. There may be reasons why you don’t think that, but HR has no reason to not punish this murder differently than mom murdering her 3 year old.
I don’t know how I feel about pushing people to call it murder. Definitely, the abortionist. But I think there’s something different in our ideas of female agency and culpability that is coloring our willingness to call it outright murder on the part of the woman.
I am always concerned when people have pat answers. Life is messy. “Good” decisions not infrequently get “bad” results. So I tend to try to be cautious with my moral judgements.
Each state is going to have to decide what they are going to do with their abortion laws. Some 26 states think they already have, but I don’t think so. It has been too easy to pass “trigger laws” that sprung into effect with the reversal of Roe v Wade because they did not have real consequences until the Court acted. Now they do. What do their people really think about that now that it really is their decision?
I accept that human life begins at conception. But I am unsure whether the earliest stages of development a woman should be mandated to carry a child to term. I am more certain that a third trimester termination is morally problematic. In an ideal world all pregnancies are prudent and wanted. But we do not have an ideal world. I do believe that termination should not be banned under any and all circumstances.
My beliefs are morally ambiguous. And if I am to give full agency to people I cannot simply grant full bodily freedom to men and consign women to involuntary servitude — even though nature seems to be ordered this way. Our human moral and legal development is oftentimes designed precisely to alter consequences of living only under natural law. And we thrive and prosper as a result, both for ourselves and our progeny.
And so it is that positions are staked out on abortion more with preference than logic, because life is messy. We need to approach public policy with humility. Iron laws make peace by breaking people.
I’m working on a post that addresses this messiness and all the many ways it manifests for many of us. Many people decide to avoid the discussion completely because it is so complex and controversial, but in some ways that decision exacerbates the conflict. But I think that to work our way through the issues, our discussions must be civil and genuine. If we don’t understand the issues for ourselves, never mind for others, the polarization will continue.
Yep, life is a messy thing and the only consistency we can count on are death and taxes. I’m pretty sure that a lot of states are going to fall into that first trimester thing. But we finally get to hear some debate in state legislatures. That matter of conception as the beginning of life is going to be interesting. Personally, I don’t buy the clump of cells argument because its never going to become a turnip or a goldfish. Just because you can’t recognize the human shape yet doesn’t change what it is. I want to hear the pro choice argument out loud somewhere.
I am encouraged by Western Chauvenist’s report that women viewing ultrasounds of the fetus changes lots of minds. Women want to bring them to term because they recognize that it’s a person. Were previous generations of fetus less human because the mom couldn’t see them?
And the control over a woman’s body thing is bogus because there’s another body, another person involved. I have no problem with women getting tatoos or piercings or any number of abuses of her body. She can smoke and drink and never exercise and ingest illegal substances because she’s pretty much free to do as she wishes with her body. But abortion is different because it involves someone else.
As I say, Planned Parenthood has resisted any attempts at fully informing women and has thrown out simple minded bumper sticker arguments in favor of termination. I want to see that debate.
Stina, I appreciate the attempt at clarity, but that’s not quite it.
The problem is that I think calling abortion “murder” but treating people who pay for abortions like normal people with whom you’d trust your kids isn’t consistent with how we treat people who pay to have murder committed.
I do value clarity and honesty. Anyone who believes that abortion is murder should certainly say so, and I’ll respect their opinion. But honesty then compels them to acknowledge that, if abortion is murder, it necessarily follows that the abortionist is a murderer — and that the woman who seeks out and pays for an abortion is hiring a murderer to murder someone.
When I said “lexical gymnastics” earlier, I was referring to the mental hoops one has to jump through to somehow conclude that what I just wrote isn’t true. One who commits murder is a murderer; one who pays for it is paying a murderer to commit murder.
I’m saying nothing about punishment, nothing about moral choices, nothing about anything except the choice of the word “murder” in this context. And what I’m saying about that choice is that it isn’t consistent with the way we normally use the word, and its use leads to strange contradictions in our moral judgment — specifically, to our somehow accepting friends, family, and loved ones who pay to have murder committed as just regular people who may have made a mistake, but whom we are still comfortable being around and happy to have in our lives.
I think we kind of water down the concept of “murder” when we use it that way, while simultaneously making it harder to engage in a useful dialog with people who favor legal abortion and may have a more conventional understanding of what “murder” means. Neither of those things seems productive to me.
If another person is involved, what restrictions on smoking, drinking, etc. would you impose on a woman during pregnancy? Certain conditions threaten a pregnancy if a woman doesn’t stay in bed for the last few months of pregnancy. Women desiring to be mothers do stay in bed. Because “another person” is involved, should a woman be forced to stay in bed if the pregnancy demands it? Do the answers to these questions make “control over a woman’s body thing” more or less bogus?
I think that’s what I was getting at. If we are going to call it murder, it has to be treated the way we treat murder. WC has no problem calling it murder and treating it different. You do. Hence disagreement.
My organization, The Knights of Columbus, have donated more than 1500 machines as of this years March for Life. That is many millions of dollars collected every year thru Bingos, food festivals, and other assorted fund raising venues.
We are quiet, but serious, about our advocacy. Those babies are our grandchildren and the inheritors of our country. We just buried our point man for the pro life activities within council. His wife came down with an illness during their wedding, and ended up having a hysterectomy a few days later. Helping others have their babies became a life mission for him and our counsel was fortunate to have his advocacy to focus our volunteerism.
Again, not quite, but very close. And, again, I appreciate you trying to bring clarity to this.
Let me try to be succinct.
Most Americans don’t think abortion is “murder” — at least, not abortion very early in pregnancy.
Most people who call abortion “murder” don’t think of people who pay for abortions like they would think of other people who pay for murder. So, even for these people, abortion isn’t “murder” in the sense that other kinds of murder are “murder.” It’s different, somehow, and when they say “murder” they mean something different from what we normally mean when we say “murder.”
It isn’t productive to use highly polarizing words in non-standard ways when talking about a divisive issue.
We may be approaching the time where we tell people that they can follow any religion they wish but if our laws are incompatible with their religion, perhaps they should move to a more compatible country. My patience is tapped.
Henry, I agree that the public at large may not view abortion as murder. I think that’s more a function of a massive campaign to distinguish them, that Planned Parenthood (pretty much a lie right in the name of the organization) has a serious monetary interest in performing as many abortions as possible – and selling body parts for research. It’s a grim business. And the girl power stuff (career is at least as important to your life as motherhood) plays a role as it is fully endorsed by a lot of feminists. Then politicians who need to tow the party line echo whatever half assed consolations PP serves up. Pro choice, as I discuss above does not favor choice, hence another euphemism organization name. It’s not much of a surprise that people distinguish between murder and abortion – they’ve been hearing it for a long time.
I think that just as ultrasounds help to prevent abortions, a lot more people who haven’t honestly thought it through may become convinced that it’s infanticide of sort. You say “It’s different, somehow…” How?
It [the use of the word “murder”] is different this way: If we knew a woman who had paid someone to murder her four year old child, most of us would probably think twice about allowing our children to go over to her house. But most of us know someone who has had an abortion and yet is someone whom we are happy to allow to socialize with us and our children.
That’s different.
They killed their unborn and must live with that. Many were deceived by the pro-abortion propaganda.
I have dealt with it twice. Once, in 1978, a friend asked me to drive her to an abortion clinic. I did even though I was against abortion. I knew why she made that choice. She was a friend who was disparate. It was 1st trimester. Still, it eats at me a little. She got married and had a successful career but never had children. I wondered if the abortion damaged her ability to conceive.
The other time, an airman of mine came to me after a deployment all upset. She had gotten pregnant on the deployment and wanted me to tell her what to do. The AF didn’t do abortions and she said she couldn’t tell her parents. The AF would have separated her, probably, as a single parent, and the father wouldn’t marry her. What she really wanted was for me case her guilt by making her ugly decision mine. I refused, both due to my position as her DO, and my moral disagreement with abortion. She did get the abortion but ended up hospitalized on base from complications.
How we act around that person depends on whether they are a friend, family member, or stranger. We can build the total picture when we know someone.