Kentucky’s legislation aligns with Jewish life affirming Torah

Beth Salamon’s opinion piece published March 4, 2022, grossly misrepresents Jewish legal views on abortion. She knows nothing of Torah prohibitions against child sacrifice nor of Torah’s consistent laws protecting life from conception onward. Today, there are many Jews and Christians who cite Jewish legal texts and scientific sources confirming that life begins at conception and deserves legal protection.

Judaism considers abortion to be murder. Respected legal authority, rabbi and physician Moses Maimonides, declared in his legal opus, the Mishneh Torah, ”The definition of murder according to the Noahide Laws includes a person who kills "even one unborn in the womb of its mother," and adds that “such a person is liable for the death penalty.”

Jewish legal authority in modern times, Rav Moshe Feinstein, stated, "Not only are Jews prohibited from having an abortion, but they are prohibited from assisting non-Jews from having an abortion, too.  According to halacha, abortion is prohibited for non-Jews; it’s actually a capital crime.”

Judaism is the original source of the exception to the prohibition of abortion “to save the life of the Mother.” Every pro-life law includes this specific exception. It was intended to be used in medieval times only in the case of a woman’s imminent death because of breech birth. Virtually no medical reason exists today that justifies killing a child in the womb to save the mother’s life. 

Relying on medieval texts to justify murdering children before birth - and after birth as abortion advocates increasingly demand - ignores modern scientific proof that confirms the actual living human status of the unborn child. Would Ms. Salamon dismiss outright modern treatment for disease in favor of ancient prescriptions such as bloodletting? Of course not.

Our American first amendment freedom of religion proscribes freedom to murder, whether Islamic honor killings or Satanic Temple abortion rites. Jews who demand allowances to approve abortions upon religious grounds that do not constitute imminent physical danger to the mother must comply with state and federal homicide statutes.

Public opinion on abortion from polling isn’t reliable, nor should it be used to codify law. Harm, injury and damage done according to current relevant laws demonstrate that abortion should be severely limited: millions of innocent deaths of unborn citizens, withholding pain medication while these victims are tortured to death, racial targeting of ‘babies of color’ in places like NYC where more black babies are aborted than born; physical, mental, and emotional harm to mothers, abortion industry noncompliance with standard medical regulations and deceptive clinic practices, failure to report sexual crimes or protect victims of sex trafficking, and illegal sales of live babies for organ harvesting.

Jewish values incorporate actions that protect and save life, not destroy life. Our traditions teach us to use our abundant resources to help vulnerable women and children flourish, to actively rescue those who are targeted for death, to respect life as made in the image of the Creator, to promote family, community, and posterity. Our legal code forbids direct involvement in the destruction of life or support of businesses that destroy life.

Abortion was weaponized against Jews in the Holocaust in pursuit of the Final Solution. Legal slaughter of sub-human parasites, as we were deemed, codified systemic racism and genocide. This language and legal precedent provided sanction for systemic racism and genocide in current American abortion law. Every Jew ought to support HB 3 because it aligns morally with Torah, and because it minimizes another existential threat to Jews in the future.

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. 

Cecily Routman, Founder & President Jewish Pro-Life Foundation

How faith-based abortion narrative omits Jewish values of reproductive freedom: Opinion

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2022/03/04/how-faith-based-abortion-narrative-omits-jewish-pro-choice-values/9356391002/