The Jewish response to abortion and why we’re *still* talking about it in 2018
Religious liberty is a term that is most often thrown around by right-wing, conservative-leaning Christians in the context of taking away other people’s rights. These rights tend to be what I would consider progressive, the right to love and marry whomever you choose, the right control when and how you start a family, and the right to terminate a pregnancy.
I consider these to be basic, inalienable rights. Christian fundamentalists would disagree. Using the argument that the First Amendment exempts not only Christians from these rights, but all Americans, has been a talking point since the religious right came to be in the 1950s.
This trend–of Christian fundamentalists believing that their right to religious freedom means taking away other rights from everyone else–is nothing short of infuriating for me, a Jewish woman, and very specifically as a Jewish woman who is unequivocally pro-choice in large part due to my religious beliefs.
That’s right. I am pro-choice, in part, because Judaism commands it. So Christians arguing that it is their right to religious freedom to criminalize, constrain, or demonize abortion is actually a violation of my religious freedom.
In my latest for Alma, a favorite site of mine, I explore this in depth. It’s something I’ve discussed briefly before, but with Kavanaugh officially on the Supreme Court, I felt this warranted a deeper, more nuanced reflection.
Read the whole article here.