A synagogue in Florida has sued the state of Florida to overturn the recently passed abortion law because it violates the freedom of religion of the members of its synagogue.
The law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A new Florida law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks with some exceptions violates religious freedom rights of Jews in addition to the state constitution’s privacy protections, a synagogue claims in a lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed by the Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach contends the law that takes effect July 1 violates Jewish teachings, which state abortion “is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman” and for other reasons.
“As such, the act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and this violates their privacy rights and religious freedom,” says the lawsuit, filed Friday in Leon County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit adds that people who “do not share the religious views reflected in the act will suffer” and that it “threatens the Jewish people by imposing the laws of other religions upon Jews.”
The case is likely to be consolidated with a court challenge filed by Planned Patenthood, which seems like a mistake. The current SCOTUS is unlikely to be persuaded by Planned Parenthood, but would likely to be sympathetic to a case about denial of religious freedom.
Why should Jews be compelled to obey a state law that violates their religious principles?
O
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have it on good evidence that the majority of births are not virgin births. What proviso is the Supreme Court including to insure shared responsibility and blessing to the sires?
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So maybe now we can start having a Public Refresher Course on why we have Separation of Church and State in the first place.
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Thanks to Diane for the post.
The substantial difference between the political actions of liberal Jewish synagogues and the actions of pro-Israel PAC’s must be understood if we want to be informed. Offered as contrast, the case of the Catholic bishops and their political arm, the state Catholic Conferences whose efforts are in tandem.
The Florida synagogue has stood up to do the right thing and deserves much praise. They are willing to spend the money on a lawsuit that benefits women (and, men) and their families.
In April, AIPAC, a pro-Israel PAC was criticized, “AIPAC has endorsed more than 100 Republicans who refused to certify Biden’s win, but not pro-Israel Liz Cheney.” Five days after the publicity, AIPAC backed Cheney. At Intercept, there’s an article describing AIPAC’s funding of campaigns against candidates who are progressive women of color.
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I presume that Jewish members of AIPAC have considered that the poor and religious are more inclined toward authoritarianism. Progressives fight for lessened income disparity. The U.S. is a nation with a very politically active conservative Christian element. Josh Mandel (Jewish) courted conservative Christians and he lost to JD Vance, who was Thiel-funded and Trump-endorsed.
If AIPAC wants authoritarianism which research links to fascism, they are politically going about it in the right way.
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American Prospect, 6-9-2022, “Will AIPAC crush one of Congress’ most prominent Jewish Democrats?” (refers to Rep. Levin- Mich.)
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The culture wars seem to be forcing some religious groups to take stands on social issues that they otherwise would have chosen to ignore. The Mennonites, a relative conservative “plain people” church, have voted to acknowledge and and accept gay marriage. The Methodists who tend to be socially liberal may actually be facing a schism over LGBTQ issues and rights. The culture wars are intended to divide people into their various factions based religious beliefs. After all, if people are fighting each other, they may not notice that the wealthy are trying to hijack our democracy and lay waste to the common good.
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Excellent points, retired teacher.
I’m curious if the funding of AIPAC includes a substantial amount from Christian libertarians.
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Good for this Florida Synagogue! Other liberal religious groups should join in the lawsuit as well. The right seeks to codify pro-life legislation even though it is not in the Constitution and despite the fact we have a federal law that gives women the choice over their own bodies. However, I shudder think what the decision would be if it ends up in the right leaning Supreme Court. The left needs to figure out a “work around” for the Supreme Court, if the court insists on imposing conservative Christian doctrine as law on Americans.
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I feel like the definition of life and the question of when one officially exists is a religious question, since some beliefs concerning the soul are a part of religious tenets. That being the case, I have always felt that definitions of life challenge the concept of freedom like no other question.
No one would argue that a religion should be allowed to abuse its children (some have tried), so this is clearly a question of the definition of life.
I happen to believe life begins at retirement, but I always refrained from acting that way when I taught people who had not even begun to earn one. Given my definition, it would be legal to summarily dispatch the life of a particularly recalcitrant student, but I bowed to the wishes of general society on the matter, and deigned to love the rascals instead. It became rewarding over the years.
Perhaps bowing to the general will of society is a plus. I just wish society would occasionally give me a nod.
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Smiled at your 3rd paragraph.
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LOL, Roy! This is hilarious.
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Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education.
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My church — The Church of the Sacred Abortion — also has a problem with these restrictive abortion laws.
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This is a Reform temple, in some countries called Liberal instead of Reform, but support for abortion is not a liberal idea in Judaism. Conservative and Orthodox temples also believe in protecting the health of a woman. The lawsuit for religious freedom is perfect, just perfect, in my humble opinion.
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Unfortunately, I suspect it has very low probability of succeeding in the current Supreme Court since the leaked majority draft opinion indicates that the majority are quite clearly not basing their opinion either on the Constitution or legal precedent anyway.
Even if the Supreme Court did agree to hear the case, I’d bet that the majority would/will simply rule that abortion is not a part of the actual religious practices of any church, so regulating or even banning it is not a violation of religious freedom.
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Exactly- which is why we should challenge the attempts to divorce LGBTQ and abortion from religious belief.
Pat Buchanan’s popularization of “culture wars” was framing intended to provide cover for religion.
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That said, provisions of the ACA that required employers to pay for birth control landed in court and were taken seriously, as I recall. Birth control was never a part of thrr Ed religious practices to which you refer above.
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Agree, SDP.
SJC Ruth Bader Ginsburg (o.b.m.)
has been dead for too long.
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The Bible gives commandments on a very, very long list of more than 600 laws on everything from divorce to gluttony — yet the Bible says nothing about abortion. Why is that? If abortion was even as important as gluttony, it would have been mentioned in the Bible.
Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, which includes the 10 Commandments, NONE — not one — comments on abortion. In fact, the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25 clearly shows that causing the abortion of a fetus is NOT MURDER. Exodus 21:22-25 says that if a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should only pay a fine that is to be determined by the woman’s husband, but if the woman dies, the man is to be executed: “If a man strives with a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet there is no harm to the woman: he shall be punished according to what the woman’s husband determines and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if the woman dies, then it shall be life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . .” Ex. 21:22-25. So, the Bible orders the death penalty for murder of a human being — the mother — but not for the death of a fetus, indicating that the fetus is not yet a human being.
There are Christian denominations that allow abortion in most instances; these denominations include the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA. The United Methodist Church and Episcopal churches allow abortion in cases of medical necessity, and the United Universalist Association also allows abortion.
Most of the opposition to abortion comes from fundamentalist and evangelical Christians who believe that a full-fledged human being is created at the instant of conception. In short — it is a religious BELIEF, something that cannot be recognized by government under our Constitution. Moreover, the belief that a fetus is a human person, complete with a soul, is a Christian misinterpretation of the Jewish Bible, that is, the Old Testament. But, Jewish scholars whose ancestors wrote the Old Testament and who know best what the words mean say that is a wrong interpretation of their writings.
Christians largely base their view that a fetus is a complete human being and that abortion is murder on the Jewish Bible’s Psalm 139: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb…You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.”
Jewish scholars point out that Psalm 139 merely describes the development of a fetus and does not mean that the fetus has a soul and is a person. In fact, the Jewish Talmud explains that for the first 40 days of a woman’s pregnancy, the fetus is considered “mere fluid” and is just part of the mother’s body, like an appendix or liver. Only after the fetus’s head emerges from the womb at birth is the baby considered a “nefesh” – Hebrew for “soul” or “spirit” – a human person.
I am not pro-abortion — I am PRO-RIGHTS, and until a fetus is in its 24th week of development the mother has the unquestionalbe right to decide what happens to the fetus. After the 24th week, society has a legitimate interest in the fetus. What that interest is, to what extent it reaches, and how to encode that interest into law isn’t easy and will require a great deal of debate in society in general and in government.
COURT BENDS THE FACTS: The University of London scientist whose research is cited by the Supreme Court in its ruling to take away abortion rights says that his research has been misinterpreted by Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s activist conservative majority. Neuroscientist Dr. Giandomenico Iannetti says that the Court is ABSOLUTELY WRONG to say that his research shows that a fetus can feel pain when it is less than 24 weeks of development. “My results by no means imply that,” Dr. Iannetti declares. “I feel they were used in a clever way to make a point.” And Dr. John Wood, molecular neurobiologist at the University, points out that all serious scientists agree that a fetus can NOT feel pain until at least 24 weeks “and perhaps not even then.” Dr. Vania Apkarian, head of the Center for Transitional Pain Research at Chicago’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that the medical evidence on a fetus not feeling pain before 24 weeks or longer has not changed in 50 years and remains “irrefutable”.
LIFE OF WOE: In its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling upholding abortion rights, the Supreme Court set “viability” — the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the womb — as the dividing line after which some restrictions can be imposed on abortion rights. The pending ruling by current activist conservative majority on the Court will do away with the concept of viability, yet even with all of today’s medical miracles to keep a prematurely born or aborted fetus alive, of all the tens of thousands of cases, 90% OF FETUSES BORN AT 22 WEEKS DO NOT SURVIVE, and data shows that the majority of those that manage to be kept alive live the rest of their lives with a combination of BIRTH DEFECTS that include mental impairment, cerebral palsy, breathing problems, blindness, deafness, and other disorders that often require frequent hospitalizations during their lifetimes.
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Really?
“most of the opposition comes from”______________.
What religion are Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas and Barrett?
What religion is Leonard Leo and Robert P. George?
Which religion has state conferences in almost every state created solely for the purpose of furthering the bishops’ political goals?
There are Catholics schools that alter the recited U.S. pledge of allegiance to include anti-abortion doctrine.
Statistics- 65% of Mormons voted for Trump in 2020, 63% of white Catholics who attend church regularly voted for Trump, 85% of evangelicals voted for Trump. Evangelicals didn’t oppose abortion until the mid-seventies when their leaders saw an opportunity to make money from the anti-woman campaign. The Southern Baptists didn’t
prohibit women from the pulpits until 2000.
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quikwrit-
Just curious- what part of the country do you live in?
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