Whoa! This Is Big!

You all know about the Supreme Court leak and you probably know the is on a big “Religious Freedom” kick. Well the two just collided big time.

If they overturn Roe v. Wade and states pass laws making abortion murder well they just ran afoul of a major religion with millions of followers!

Supreme Court’s Roe ruling would trample the religious freedom of every Jewish American
San Francisco Chronicle
By Daniel Bogard and Tana Senn
May 6, 2022


The Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade sent shock waves throughout our country when it was leaked this week. If the ruling stands, abortion access would be decimated in huge swaths of the country, and the rights of Americans everywhere will depend on whether they happen to live in a blue state or in a red state. Beyond being a violation of the human rights of pregnant people, limiting access to abortion is an imposition of governmental Christianity on us all.

And it infringes on the religious liberty of every American Jew.

For Jews, it is no exaggeration to say that access to abortion services isn’t just tolerated, it is a religious requirement, and has been for thousands of years.

[…]

The Torah couldn’t be more explicit: A fetus is not the same as a human life.

The Talmud, a central religious text for Jews written over 1,400 years ago, makes this even clearer by stating that “a fetus is considered a part of the pregnant person’s body, equivalent to their thigh.”

[...]

 Jewish legal rulings from the last 1,000 years additionally make it clear that there are other circumstances beyond a pregnant person’s life being in physical danger where an abortion must be performed. Judaism also recognizes personal well-being, mental health and all sorts of other situations where a person might choose to terminate a pregnancy.

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There was also an article on NPR about this.

When does life begin? Religions don't agree
By Sarah McCammon
May 8, 2022<


In a bill introduced this past week, a Louisiana lawmaker describes human life as "created in the image of God" and seeks to make abortion a homicide from the moment of fertilization – sparking concerns from reproductive rights advocates that such a law would also jeopardize access to contraception and fertility treatments.

Debates around abortion often center around the issue of when life begins, and adjacent religious and moral questions. It came up during oral arguments last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a major abortion case currently before the Supreme Court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Mississippi's solicitor general to explain his view that the state should be allowed to ban abortions, calling it a religious question that's been debated since the beginning of time.

"It's still debated in religions," she said. "So when you say this is the only right that takes away from the state the ability to protect a life, that's a religious view, isn't it?"

[…]

A variety of views

Polls suggest that while a majority of Americans support abortion rights and oppose overturning Roe, views on abortion are often closely tied to religion.

Jewish, Buddhist, Unitarian and non-religious Americans express some of the strongest support for abortion rights in surveys. Within Christianity, there's a wide variety of views.

Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, opposes abortion. As a Catholic, Anderson believes that human life begins at conception.

[...]

Margaret Kamitsuka, an emeritus professor of religion at Oberlin College, argues there's significant ambiguity about abortion in the Christian tradition. She notes it's never mentioned in the Bible.

"Which is quite stunning," she said, "because pretty much every other moral issue is talked about – from divorce to gluttony and robbery and so on."

The topic of religion was brought up in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case currently before the Supreme Court.

Amicus briefs in the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court have come from a wide variety of faith groups — with widely varying positions. A brief from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and other groups argues that religion is "at the heart" of anti-abortion laws, and that "government has no business requiring citizens to comply with the religious beliefs of those who are in power."

So in other words if a state says abortion is murder and life begins at contraception then the states will be tramping on the religious beliefs of millions of people. If the courts decide in favor of the states then the courts will be endorsing the Christian religion.

This is what happens when the court puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution.