abortion cases new arguments The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade , holding there is no right to an abortion under the U.S. Constitution, has led abortion-rights activists in multiple states to make religious freedom arguments for abortion. In Florida, multiple religious entities filed a new lawsuit arguing that the state’s new law banning abortion after 15 weeks violates their religious freedom under the First Amendment and the Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Among other things, the complaint alleges, the 15-week ban “substantially burdens Plaintiffs, as well as their congregants and all members of the Jewish faith, in the exercise of their Jewish beliefs and practices regarding abortion.” (A Florida synagogue filed a similar suit back in June challenging the law on similar grounds.) In a recent article by Harry Bruinius and Henry Gass in the Christian Science Monitor , Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar-in-residence for the National Council of Jewish Women, explains this view: It is a mitzvah, or religious duty in [the Jewish] tradition, she says, to preserve the life, health, and well-being of a pregnant woman, regardless of the timing. And even though every state law that currently bans abortion contains language allowing for exceptions […]
