Letters: Roe a matter of religious rights for Jewish women; A destructive Republican Party

Roe a matter of religious rights for Jewish women

Attention Jewish women! Assert your religious rights! In Jewish law, the fetus is regarded as a physical part of the mother’s body, not separate from the mother, and not yet having life of its own or independent rights.

Looking at abortion as viewed in the Old Testament, abortion is permitted, even required should the pregnancy endanger the physical or psychological life of the mother. Judaism values life and affirms that protecting existing life is paramount — and supersedes that of the fetus.

The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was pushed through by the Court’s self-avowed “originalists” who believe that because abortion wasn’t specifically mentioned in our 236-year-old Constitution, there is no constitutional right to one.

When the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in 2018 that a Christian baker, opposed to gay marriage for religious reasons, could not be forced to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, the ruling was considered a victory for religious freedom. Religious freedom!? What about the religious freedom of Jewish women?

That life begins at conception is a Christian notion. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is, therefore, a de facto declaration that this is a Christian nation. The signers of the U.S. Constitution sanctioned a secular republic, not a Christian nation. And according to our First Amendment, individual citizens are free to bring their religious convictions into the public arena, but the government is prohibited from favoring one religious view over another.

Let’s test religious freedom regarding abortion.

A destructive Republican Party

Not your dad’s Republican Party? It’s not just Trump’s autocratic destruction of democratic principles. It’s also that the Republican Party has been taken over by libertarians, led by a massive infusion of funds over decades. The Koch brothers and a cadre of millionaires and billionaires have funded numerous organizations and they believe they have the right to do whatever they want without government interference. They are incrementally destroying peoples’ confidence in government, unions and collective bargaining, science and the press in order to destroy women’s rights, sexual preference rights, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, and any other program that entails costs for themselves. They control the Republican House and Senate members through threat of being primaried, massive reelection support for those who cooperate and through “economic liberty” education. Where economic “freedom” for themselves trumps all other rights. It is a key reason why so few stood up for fair democratic elections, added to Trump’s veiled threats. This “education” has been done stealthily, not only to those congressional members but to lawyers and judges, including the Supreme Court judges with the results just beginning to be seen. Over 40% of the judiciary has now been indoctrinated. They take this approach because they know the public would not support these ideas. Rule by majority is anathema to these people. They have been working to affect and install state Republican leaders to enact their ALEC group measures as well. It will mean servitude for most and no democracy. Read “Democracy in Chains.”

Apply SCOTUS’ ‘twisted reasoning’ further

So six unelected ideological extremists on the Supreme Court — most of them nominated by Presidents who received a minority of the popular vote, and holding lifetime appointments making them utterly unaccountable to the public in our supposed democracy — have told us that individual states will decide whether or not you can get an abortion.

Why didn’t they take this idea further? Why didn’t they decree that each individual congressional district can make that decision on behalf of the women who live there?

Or why not individual counties? Or make it even more democratic. Let each town and city decide whether or not abortion will be legal there? Or better yet, each ZIP code?

In fact, let’s take the twisted reasoning of the six Supreme Court radical ideologues to its logical conclusion:

Let each individual woman decide whether or not she wants an abortion!