This goes even deeper than people realize, because Judaism does not merely allow abortion based on a woman’s choice – in the subset of situations where an abortion is necessary in order to prevent a grave risk to the mother’s life, it requires abortion, and the mother has no say in the matter.
Now, this is problematic from a bodily autonomy perspective, and trust me, Jewish feminists have been grappling with it for ages. But from a legal perspective, it is incredibly important.
Many humanist and secular religions are flexible on the subject of abortion, because starting from scratch, it seems like a pretty good idea to bake bodily autonomy into the question. But this isn’t nearly the cudgel against the Christian far-right that people think it is. If one side of the argument (say, an atheist woman) is somewhat flexible on the issue (as in, she morally feels she can choose to either get and abortion or not) and the other side of the argument (say, a Christian-run company that woman gets her healthcare from) is very inflexible on the issue (as in, they feel they morally cannot facilitate abortions under any circumstance), then there’s a tendency to draw the compromise in a deeply unreasonable place. “You think women should be able to either have or not have abortions, and he thinks women should not be able to have abortions – If we go along with your suggestion, he’s unsatisfied in every situation, whereas if we go along with his, you’re getting like half of what you want, so that’s clearly the more fair option!”
This, of course, is a logical fallacy, and a rather silly one at that, but it holds real emotional sway for people, and ought to be taken seriously. Wanting a single thing is a much stronger place to argue from in our society than wanting the ability to choose between things. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t think anyone has the slightest idea of how to to fix it yet – that’s just the way that people seem to think.
This all falls apart when you meet another immovable object, such as Judaism. Judaism’s position on abortion is very clear, it leaves essentially no room for choice in situations where the mother’s life could be at risk, and it comes to conclusions which are startlingly different from Christianity’s. To put things into perspective here, the Mishna (one of the earliest codifications of halacha, or Jewish law) explicitly states that not only is third-trimester abortion required to save a mother’s life, but that even the dismemberment of a fetus midway through a breach birth is required when failure to do so would imperil the mother. Let me say that again – Judaism says that if the baby gets stuck literally halfway out of the birth canal during a birth and endangers the mother’s life, you are required to cut the partially birthed infant out of the womb, killing it if necessary, in order to preserve the mother’s life.
This is way the fuck out there in crazy-land, as far as US abortion law is concerned. Even pro-choice advocates that are maximally permissive on the subject of third-trimester abortions usually stop short of saying “you have the right to cut up a partially-birthed and completely viable infant while the mother is in labor.” That’s not a position that anyone has been advocating, literally anywhere that I have ever seen.
AND YET, not only does Judaism permit this, but it explicitly requires it. There’s no room to be mealy mouthed about compromises here – the Christian fundamentalist who claims to have a deep religious opposition to allowing a woman to receive an abortion in the above situation is on no stronger ground than the Jew who claims to have a deep religious opposition to permitting the woman to avoid having the abortion.
And lest you think this is theoretical, please know that this is already a religious liberty issue for many Jews. Every year, there are Jewish women who fly to other countries, by the explicit order of their rabbis, to receive third-trimester abortions which are required by their religion, but banned by law. Every year, Jews facing what is perhaps the most difficult time in their lives are callously reminded that when people talk about religious freedom in America, they do not and never have meant religious freedom for anyone other than Christians.
Please share this the next time you’re in an abortion argument and religious freedom comes up. The only option which can accommodate the requirements of both Judaism and Christianity on this point is a maximally pro-choice argument. Anything short of that in either direction is not religious freedom – it is the religious tyranny of one group over another.
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