“Our Jewish brothers and sisters,” squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained during a recent rant, “are able to have an abortion according to their faith.” Many religions, the congresswoman goes on, do not share the “fundamentalist Christian” definition of life. They too have a right to exercise their faith, and to stand in their way is “authoritarian” and “theocratic.”
Ocasio-Cortez is a perfect straw man for this piece because she completely misunderstands not only the Jewish position on abortion but religious freedom, as well.
For one thing, does AOC, who is purportedly Catholic, believe that Pope Francis — who, like every pontiff in history, views abortion as “murder” — is a “Christian fundamentalist”? Perhaps. Until about five minutes ago, even science lovers believed life began at conception. The abortion debate revolved around the ethical question of when life was worth protecting.
These days, science conforms to our politics rather than the other way around. Increasingly, people demand faith do the same. And perhaps the most contemptible achievement of many progressive Jewish groups isn’t that they have cynically trashed a 3,000-year tradition, but that they’ve convinced millions of Americans that radical cultural leftism is synonymous with Judaism.
Nonetheless, AOC’s Jewish brothers and sisters have no genuine theological case to make for abortion on demand as a sacrament. The congresswoman probably got the idea from the Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor — adherents of “cosmic” Judaism, an “all-inclusive, universal, and rational approach” to faith. The temple recently filed a suit that makes the preposterous claim that Florida’s 15-week abortion restriction “prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and this violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.” Three political activists in Kentucky filed similar lawsuits contending that state law infringes on their religious freedom by imposing a “Christian understanding” of life.
Now, I’m not a rabbi, but I feel slightly more qualified to comment on the Jewish faith than Ocasio-Cortez — and, while we’re at it, the “rabbi” of any cosmic shul. It would be misleading to assert that Jews adhere to the “pro-life” position in the way many Evangelicals or Catholics do. But it would be far less misleading than calling the Jewish traditional view on abortion “pro-choice” — a position that, in its contemporary meaning, means on demand throughout nine months for any reason.
The Orthodox Union’s diplomatic reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade is that it is “unable to either mourn or celebrate the news reports of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade” because it does not support “absolute bans on abortion — at any time point in a pregnancy — that would not allow access to abortion in lifesaving situations” or support legislation that does not limit abortion to “situations in which medical (including mental health) professionals affirm that carrying the pregnancy to term poses real risk to the life of the mother.”
Neither the laws of Florida nor Kentucky — nor any state, for that matter — denies abortions for pregnancies that pose a real risk to the life of the mother. In any situation where abortion is required by Jewish law, it remains legal. Of course, even if we conceded for the sake of argument that the Jewish faith allows for abortion as means of birth control, as AOC suggests, it is certainly not a sin to avoid getting one nor is it a mitzvah or a sacrament to seek one out. Abortion laws do not intrude on anyone’s religious freedom.
With Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court threw abortion back into the democratic process. Americans can now vote on the issue using any moral calculus they desire. Some might turn to Malthus or Marx for moral guidance. Others to Christ. But voting based on your beliefs is not theocratic. A theocratic policy entails things like state-imposed religious tests for office or a state-endorsed church or the state compelling people to praise church doctrine. Try imagining a florist or baker being compelled by the government to create speech that undermines their beliefs. Something like that.
Indeed, Judaism stresses the preservation and celebration of life. Nothing about the contemporary leftist position on abortion — an inherent “right,” not merely used in rare instances when a pregnancy imperils a life, but whenever, and for any reason, a person demands — aligns with that tradition or culture.
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David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
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These days, science conforms to our Democrat Party’s politics rather than the other way around. Increasingly, people demand faith do the same.
“Many religions, the congresswoman goes on, do not share the “fundamentalist Christian” definition of life.”
Keep in mind: Life is a gift from God. #6 of the 10 Commandment of God “Thou shalt not kill”
Not all religions are religions worship the Lord God Almighty “Yahweh YHWH” and his son Jesus Christ.
Not all churches are Churches of God and teach God’s Word the Holy Bible.
One is free to worship anything they want and to believe anything that they want.
Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
The founder’s idea of “One is free to worship anything they want and to believe anything that they want.” Began to deteriorate when the accompanying “You Play you pay” went out the window, and the cost personal failures and bad Pro-Choices stopped being paid by the failed individual and got politically and financially assumed by the beguiled social Collective called government. Sane people form collective governments to only do that which individuals cannot accomplish alone,,,like fight wars, build roads, and bridges etc. When do-good feckless people of fake promises began to make government assume responsibility for doing for individuals that which individuals were designed to do for themselves, that was the beginning of the building of our American bridges to nowhere,,,nowhere but moral and financial bankruptcy and the death of individual responsibility. Our American Government was not designed to be Insurance Companies for THE PEOPLE’s bad life decisions.
Exactly. WHEN Ramifications for one’s own choices, STOPPED BEING LEVIED On the dunces making those poor choices, and got BORN BY EVERYONE ELSE in the form of higher taxes, to ‘fund their lifestyles’. FOLKS FOUND OUT that they can do what the hell they want, and never have to suffer for it.
Abortion is not a Jewish sacrament, but in the Squad believers of the secular socialist religion of man-gods it certainly is. When Secular swingers like AOC became the American gatekeepers of life and death, the death gates swung wide open,,,the wide gates that the Jewish Book of life tells us leads to death and destruction, not the narrow gate that leads to redemption and eternal life. So-called faux (not the real deal) self-declared Christians, when given the choice between doing the right thing and living in the image of their creator, or selling out to get elected in power by the confused people who live in the image of the great destroyer/consumer, always speak with words that promise their heavens on earth, but in actions create only more destruction of OTHER people’s life forces in order to elevate and create opportunities to advance themselves. Pulling God down and off the pedestal and elevating themselves is their deceptive goal. I do believe there is a special place in hell for such deceivers who Just love to call WE THE PEOPLE American Consumers,,,no indeed, this Christian founded nation and its people were created to CREATE,,,,and out of that abundance become a blessing for others, who birth and create more creative images that create and grow the nation, not deplete it of its most important product,,,,i.e. American people of integrity, not people of empty debilitating ideas that only create empty pockets and empty cribs, and tent cities full of poverty.
To take the liberty of paraphrasing the great General George S. Patton, ” That ignorant twit Alexandria Obviously Communist knows as much about religion as she does about telling the truth!”
The creation of another life, separate and apart from the parents is science. It occurs at conception. Before conception “you” didn’t exist. After conception, you do. The religious question comes in only to either respect that life or not.
Exactly what human right gives a woman the right to murder her unborn baby?
What about the Baby’s human rights?
A woman’s body ends at the end of the baby’s umbilical cord and that is where the baby’s body begins.
It is NOT THE WOMAN’S BODY THAT THEY ARE KILLING;
it is the baby’s body!!
Harsh to say it, but maybe if MORE WOMEN DID suffer, from having an abortion LESS WOULD HAVE ONE.
when i see that pic of her it reminds me of hee haw!!!
When a sperm cell penetrates an egg cell, and their DNA intertwines, a new being; a new life is created. If it is a human sperm and human egg, it is a human being.
That’s not religion, that’s science and it is logic.
This life has value the same as a new born babe, or a seventy-five year old nursing home resident.
This life has the same value if the parents were Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any of the other faiths–including no faith–in the world.
It is a kind of morality which transcends religion.