A Florida synagogue is challenging a state law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, claiming it is a violation of Jewish religious freedoms.
In April, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law HB5, the Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality Act, which would ban abortions after 15 weeks, with an exception only for if it would save the life of a mother or prevent serious injury, or if there are serious fetal abnormalities. There are no such exceptions for rape, incest, or if the mother was a victim of human trafficking.
“House Bill 5 protects babies in the womb who have beating hearts, who can move, who can taste, who can see, and who can feel pain,” DeSantis said in a statement at the time. “Life is a sacred gift worthy of our protection, and I am proud to sign this great piece of legislation which represents the most significant protections for life in the state’s modern history.”
Violation of the legislation counts as a third degree felony, and could be subject to five years in prison, or a fine of up to $5,000 for a first offence. Health care professionals who violate the legislation can have their licences revoked, and be fined up to $10,000 per instance.
The Florida law was modelled after a similar piece of legislation in Mississippi, which is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
However, a synagogue, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach, filed a lawsuit on Friday in the Leon County Circuit Court challenging the Florida abortion legislation, arguing that because Jewish law permits women to have an abortion, their religious freedoms will be violated as a result:
“In Jewish law, abortion is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman… As such, the Act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion… By preventing Jews from making intimate, personal decisions about the size of their families… the Act not only threatens the lives, equality, and dignity of Jewish women, the Act also threatens the integrity of the Jewish family… The failure to maintain the separation of church and state… threatens the Jewish family, and thus also threatens the Jewish people by imposing the laws of other religions upon Jews.”
In May, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the fact that abortion was permitted under Jewish law in order to morally justify it on a livestream. The Pew Research Center reported in 2018 that “American Jews (83%) in the 2014 survey were much more supportive of legal abortion than the general population.”
In the lawsuit, the synagogue argued that the Florida abortion ban only exists because “Christian nationalists” are seeking to deny religious freedom to Jews and others, “under the arrogant, self-righteous notion that only they are capable of understanding God’s law and judgments and the religious views of all others are false, evil and not entitled to respect or constitutional protections”:
“Proponents of this way of thinking used their political power to enshrine their narrow religious views as the law of the State of Florida… [which] threatens and harms the very framework of our Democracy… The Jewish people have often borne the brunt of the horrors that occur when the power of Christianity has merged with the power of the state. The result has been Inquisitions, Crusades, ghettoes and pogroms for the Jews and the eventual loss of freedom for everyone else… The architects of the Act have taken a first step towards… returning the state of Florida and our nation back to a time when the merger of Christianity and government produced genocide, slavery, misogyny, and the denial of equal rights.”
In a post on Facebook on Thursday, Rabbi Barry Silver, a lawyer and former Democrat state legislator, who describes himself as a “rabbi rouser” on his personal website, attacked “DeathSantis” for being “pro-lie,” not “pro-life”:
If he were truly pro-life, he would seek universal health care, protect our planet, help the poor and outlaw assault weapons that are killing our children. And if he truly understood the sanctity of life, he would stop trying to force parenthood on women against their will and realize that bringing new life into the world is a blessing when done out of love and by choice and is a curse when forced through coercion by the state… Society improves when women’s rights to reproduction are respected and is harmed when women are treated as incubators not people. Jews and others don’t need religious fanatics to teach us about the sanctity of life by imposing their misguided religious views upon us.
Earlier in June, Planned Parenthood launched a lawsuit against the same piece of legislation, arguing that it violates a provision in the state constitution that guarantees a right to privacy, “including the right to abortion.” In a statement, DeSantis’ office said that they were “confident that this law will ultimately withstand all legal challenges.”
