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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
Agree with the ultrasound comment. It seems many change their minds if they see an ultrasound. They were deceived by their “doctors.” The doctors are all evil as far as I am concerned. If the woman learns and never lets that happen again, that is one thing. I wholeheartedly condemn those who celebrate abortion or who have multiple ones.
The problem is the left has no guardrails. They were never for“ safe, legal, and rare,” just for legal. They could never be confined to just the period when it was just the “clump of cells,” but took the right up until birth, then even after delivery. These abortions are so horrible and occur when the baby feels pain. I cont even describe them, they are so horrible. But the left didn’t stop there, but then insisted those who see the practice abhorrent support and even become a party to abortions. Then, to maintain abortions, they bastardized our judicial system to maintain and advance abortion. It started with lies, was maintained with lies, and was overturned by the truth.
I have no qualms calling ripping apart limb by limb or puncturing the skull of a fully formed baby murder, especially since the baby can feel pain at that point. We would not draw and quarter a murderer but choose more humane methods of execution.
The rabbi isn’t the only one looking for a religious exemption . . .
“Most” might be an exaggeration. There is a reason we call it “culture of death.” Abortion is polarizing. It lasted as long as it did because we hid its ugliness behind deceptive language such as “heath care, choice, reproductive freedom, clump of cells, “ etc. If people want to defend something, perhaps they should be honest about what they are defending. The left refused to be honest.
The train left the station a long time ago. What Democrats want to preserve now is easily called murder. They just couldn’t stop at the “clump of cells” stage.
I agree that some on the left want to defend murder. But quite a few people want to defend the right to legal abortion in the first very few weeks of pregnancy. The problem with the phrase “abortion is murder” is that it covers the entire range, from abortion at three weeks to abortion at nine months.
According to surveys (e.g., here), a significant majority (above 80%) of Americans think abortion should be legal in at least some cases; a simple majority (about 60%) think it should be generally legal, though with restrictions.
From what I’m seeing, there is an unwillingness to punish mothers for aborting their babies as we do other murderers.
If that is the “cheapening” of murder being discussed, then I agree, maybe avoid calling it murder until you are willing to have women pay the penalty we mete out for murder.
However, if the justification for not calling it murder for the sake of “cheapening” the word is because you don’t think a mother destroying her child in what is supposed to be the safest place that child will ever know is not as heinous as other forms of murder, then that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what abortion is.
Actually, Hank, even the pollsters point out the messiness of these results, due to differences in poll questions and the attitudes of the respondents. Because abortion is suchly an intensely personal topic, I’m coming to believe that we don’t really know how people feel.
I will be putting up a post on this shortly.
Just a reminder of why Roe was so consequential: up to the 1973 decision, abortion was illegal in (at least) most states. Roe suddenly overturned all the state laws that became law through an actual legislative process. Pretty sure it wasn’t a civil thing, abortionists were going to jail.
What we want most of all is for there not to be unplanned pregnancies anymore. There’s no guaranteed good answer, and the best thing to do is to avoid it completely. There are a lot of disincentives we can adopt to keep girls and women and boys and men of childbearing age away from sex. We need to consider them. And I think DNA testing will change things too. There is no such thing as a fatherless child. Today it is easy to ascertain the name of a child’s father.
I can sympathize with Henry’s point, too. So many women grew up in a time when they were deceived by the pro-abortion crowd. Also, making it legal for so many years told them it was ok. To retroactively label them as murderers is against our concept of ex post facto laws. Many might already feel guilty over what they have done. They need healing and forgiveness, not a new mental health burden. However, from this day forward, I have no qualms calling it murder going forward.
Isn’t it funny how the left has collective and ex post facto guilt to assign for slavery, a guilt spread to all white people past and present, but abortion has a different standard. [I do not include Henry Racette in this. He isn’t a leftie and I do not see his comments as fitting what I am describing here.]
I’d rather have unplanned pregnancies than abortion.
Some people step up to be responsible adults when faced down with an unplanned baby. Other unfortunate couples are given the chance to adopt. Grandparents demonstrate grace and mercy to their un-ready child-parents.
Is it perfect? No. Are there bad results? Yes. But abortion is always a bad result. The other way is not always a bad result.
Everything about the pro abortion movement is a deliberately deceptive con. “Women’s health” and “between a woman and her doctor” casually ignore the other person in the picture. Presumably the doctor they refer to performs abortions. And the term “women’s health” has been expanded way beyond what most people would think of as an ailment requiring medical intervention.
They have to change the language of what they’re doing because they know what it is. They don’t want parents to know when a teen gets an abortion because they know what it is.
We’ve been carefully taught.
My interest here is much like my interest elsewhere in the cultural sphere: I want to make a difference. I think we are most likely to make a difference by finding ways to connect to people, and by trying to avoid unnecessarily divisive language.
If I were talking to a frothing pro-abortion extremist who thought dismembering full-term unborn babies was just fine — and, unfortunately, there are such ghouls on the pro-abortion side — then I’d make no effort to find common ground. In fact, I wouldn’t even engage such a person, any more than I’d engage a devout socialist, unless there was an audience of normal people witnessing the event. Otherwise there’s just no point: extremists rarely change their minds.
And, despite whatever impression I may be conveying, I don’t want to try to discourage people who think that all abortion should be illegal from calling for that. The strict anti-abortion folk are closer to my own position than the anything-goes pro-abortion ghouls: your average pro-abortion person would be unhappy with the restrictions I’d place on abortion, and certainly with the restrictions I’d tolerate being placed on abortion (since that would include an outright ban on abortion).
We had for years a bumper sticker on the family van: “Abortion stops a beating heart.” It remains my favorite pro-life slogan because it is blunt, undeniably true, and yet strangely neutral: it invites people to think about the issue, without necessarily demanding any particular answer.
I’ll leave this discussion with that. Abortion stops a beating heart.
Henry, I respect your opinion – it’s more mainstream than mine – we just disagree on those distinctions. My point was strictly to try to challenge normal thinking on the matter.
Man, just listened to a half hour of Ben Shapiro. Pretty persuasive taking down everyone from Brandon to AOC to Liz Warren. At double the pace of normal humans.
Hat tip to the Kof C for gently changing minds.
The whole issue of public opinion and acceptance of abortion as murder or not, is one of the primary means of promoting the sale of abortions and the drawing and quartering of children — future human air breathers and thinkers.
And yet if the truth were well available and widely known, there is still the cultural environment in which each abortion purchaser purchases the service. And there is a so-called Overton window of acceptance that is being manipulated. So public acceptance is a matter of PR or (as it was originally called) propaganda.
And people tend to think without knowing it that if something is legal it is right. And so the difference between murdering a baby in the womb being legal, they think it is different from wrapping a newborn in plastic wrap and leaving it is a bathroom garbage can which is at least nominally illegal (though I don’t think anyone’s been prosecuted for this).
The question is not whether the populace sees abortion as the murder which it is, but whether abortion is in fact murder — which I argue that it clearly is.
When we see rare fictional but moving movies of children being being manhandled and thrown alive and screaming into a fiery furnace, it is almost too much to comprehend. And this is because we have never seen it, or heard of it actually being done. And this disbelief about killing children is further fostered by the way that abortion is practiced.
A woman never sees the procedure, her legs are draped. I doubt she is ever shown the dismembered body parts, the face, the disjoined arms and legs. The sucked out brain matter in a plastic jar. There are no visitors or witnesses, to see the extraction, and to talk about it over coffee with the neighbors the next morning.
It is medicalized. And it is depersonalized. If the woman undergoing an abortion were to be the one to press the suction button, or give permission every time an instrument is inserted, it would be a lot more clear to everyone that it is murder.
And yet if everyone is indoctrinated that abortion is a good that should be shouted out the next day (to the applause of on-lookers); and only makes one’s life better with more choices, opportunities, and freedom; and it is the demonstration and culmination of every woman’s Right to exercise control over her body: then it will not only lose any remaining stigma but will be encouraged for abortion’s sake.
With the promotion of shouting out one’s abortion, and protesting with fake blood dripping from one’s crotch and carrying a baby doll, it is only a matter of time before there will be an acceptance of videoing one’s abortion and posting it on twitter for everyone to admire.
And after that, purveyors of death will move the Overton window to early infanticide.