Politico’s Monday night reveal of a Supreme Court majority bill The decision that would reverse Roe v. Wade, the leak heard around the world, placed the issue of abortion squarely on the nation’s front lines. On high heat.
Conservative politicians and pundits, unsurprisingly, celebrated the development, which comes as the court is considering whether a law in Mississippi that bans abortion after 15 weeks is constitutional. Other reactions were negative, some bordering on stroke.
Letting voters in each state balance respect for personal liberty with respect for nascent life, as a Roe inversion would do, seems reasonable to me.
Hillary Clinton tweeted that the draft decision “is a direct attack on the dignity, rights and lives of women, not to mention decades of established law. He will kill and subjugate women. … What a complete shame.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., called on the possible Roe capsize “an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”
President Joe Biden declared on Twitter that “a woman’s right to choose is fundamental” and that “Roe has been the law of the land for nearly fifty years.”
(Biden and Clinton should know that the Plessy vs. Ferguson The decision, which in 1896 upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation, was also the law of the land for half a century. The Supreme Court exists not only to issue new decisions, but also to review old ones.)
Agudath Israel of America, the national Orthodox Jewish organization for which I work, has for decades favored a reversal of Roe. Over the years, we have filed several amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court on abortion, such as in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, who would have overruled Roe. To our chagrin, the 1992 opinion confirmed it, although it provided some limitations.
Our position is driven by traditional Judaism’s position on abortion. as long as there is many jews who are in favor of an unrestricted right to abortion, and there are Jewish religious movements who wholeheartedly embrace Roe, no source in the Jewish legal tradition considers abortion to be a “right” that a woman can simply choose to pursue. Judaism is overwhelmingly about responsibilities, not rights. And while Judaism sees a fetus as more than just a baby, it sees it as the responsibility of both women and men to care for babies who are not yet babies, that is, potential lives.
Of course, there is no reason for American law to reflect Jewish or any other religious values. But Americans like me also believe that the issue of abortion transcends parochial religious concerns.
Beyond religious considerations, Agudath Israel, like many enemies of Roe, considers the landmark 1973 decision to be jurisprudentially flawed for magically pulling a shiny new right out of the constitutional hat, and socially unhealthy for opening the floodgates to mass feticide. .
That should concern not only Americans with religious views, but also any open-minded citizen, even the most agnostic or atheist.
Perhaps it is too much to hope for in our politically polarized times, but a reboot on the abortion issue, a reassessment of the real issue, with its thick partisan rust removed, is to be welcomed, whatever one’s position.
Surely the law should allow a woman to choose what she wants to do with her body. At the same time, it cannot be ignored that a fetus, despite its size and stage of development, is it is not an organ of the one who carries it. You can have a different blood type, a different skin color, even, as is the case about half the time, a different sex. The DNA of its cells is not that of the one in which it is gestating. That is not religion; it’s science
So letting voters in each state balance respect for personal liberty with respect for nascent life, as an inversion of Roe would do, seems reasonable to me, while the howls of indignation at that scenario seem overexcited to me. There are two important and contradictory concerns to weigh here, and weight is not achieved with chants and banners.
While I would wholeheartedly welcome a reversal of Roe, if the court adopts the draft opinion when it renders its decision later this term, I am concerned about what might follow, such as legislative proposals that would allow a fetus full rights as a person or outlaw abortion without exception.
There are cases where the option of abortion should be available, such as when the progression of a pregnancy threatens the life of the intended mother. Jewish law allows, in fact requiresabortion in such cases, and vast majority of Americans have a similar mindset. There are also pregnancies where the fetus has genetic abnormalities or will face a deadly disease after birth. Some Jewish sources consider it a circumstance in which a woman could also be penalized for having an abortion.
Do you want more articles like this? Follow THINK on Instagram for updates on the week’s top political analysis
This is why Agudath Israel of America has never supported any legislation that bans wholesale abortion without exception.
In the end, however, cases of true threat to the life of a potential mother they are blissfully rare. The most common reasons women give for abortion have to do with financial, time, or partner-related concerns. That presents a very different calculation.
Roe was a sledgehammer, and mishandled. In the wake of his reversal, citizens of every state would be charged with using a scalpel to craft laws that treat unborn life with respect while also accommodating the protection of women’s welfare.
The screaming should stop and start thinking.
Related:
Reference-www.nbcnews.com