The Roe Countdown

[JoeMorgue]

Where the hell are these supposed claims coming from?

Facts. I know that's a new and scary concept for you but go find them yourself, don't act like anyone is going to go a scavenger hunt for you.

 

[Ziggurat]

Facts.

Uh, no. That's kind of the whole point of that piece: the claims are not the facts. The facts are (supposedly) being offered in response to the claims.

But who the hell is making the claims? NPR doesn't source any of them, so for all I know they got them from some homeless guy under a bridge. For example, I've never seen the claim that "The only people getting abortions are straight, cisgender women." I would not be surprised if someone, somewhere has made this claim at some point in time. But it doesn't actually seem to be an important part of the abortion debate.

I know that's a new and scary concept for you but go find them yourself, don't act like anyone is going to go a scavenger hunt for you.

I did, which is more than I can say for you. If you had read my post, and you would have seen that.

 

[Bob001]

In an on-line chat with a columnist, a poster contends that overturning Roe v. Wade would constitute a Christian affront to her own Jewish faith traditions:

Overturning Roe is a direct assault on my religious obligations, which does not consider an embryo up to 40 days old an object that is even alive (the Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 69b states that: “the embryo is considered to be mere water until the fortieth day”). After that point, it is considered subhuman, and certainly has no status of personhood until birth. The Torah is silent on when the status of personhood occurs, although halachic sources state that it starts once the baby is delivered and is not fully conferred until 13 days after birth.

In fact, the Torah considers a miscarriage due to an assault on the mother to be a tort requiring nothing more than financial compensation (Exodus 21:34 "When men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results (literally, “her child comes out”) but no [other] damage ensues, the one responsible he shall be fined." Again, the biblical status of the fetus is property, not a person.

Going further, if a pregnancy endangers a mother's life, the fetus is considered a "rodef" (pursuer) and there is a halachic obligation to abort the fetus. For example, in a case of maternal danger, we find in Sanhedrin 72b and Mishna Oholos 7:3, “If a woman is having trouble giving birth, they cut up the child in her womb and bring it forth limb by limb, because her life comes before the life of [the child].”

More than half the states will make Orthodox Jewish women and physicians felons for observing the requirements of Torah. Where does that end? Will kashrut be banned? Will we be forced to worship Jesus (which for Jews, is avodah zorah (idolatry), and a capital crime)? Will synagogues be under threat for not promoting the Trinity?

These are real questions for us. In fact, my cousin's girls went to public school in Kentucky, where classrooms had pictures of Washington, Lincoln and Jesus on the wall, a clear violation of the Establishment clause. So this is not a theoretical issue for Jews.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/06/jennifer-rubin-reader-qa/

The Supreme Court only supports religious freedom for the right (in multiple senses) religion.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Uh, no. That's kind of the whole point of that piece: the claims are not the facts. The facts are (supposedly) being offered in response to the claims.

Again your opinion of what facts are does not matter to me given how you've treated the concept in the past.

 

[Meadmaker]

In an on-line chat with a columnist, a poster contends that overturning Roe v. Wade would constitute a Christian affront to her own Jewish faith traditions:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/06/jennifer-rubin-reader-qa/

The Supreme Court only supports religious freedom for the right (in multiple senses) religion.

More than half the states will make Orthodox Jewish women and physicians felons for observing the requirements of Torah. Where does that end? Will kashrut be banned? Will we be forced to worship Jesus (which for Jews, is avodah zorah (idolatry), and a capital crime)? Will synagogues be under threat for not promoting the Trinity?

The real question is where does it begin. The whole thing is utter hogwash.

 

[Ziggurat]

More than half the states will make Orthodox Jewish women and physicians felons for observing the requirements of Torah.

Well, no. They criminalize doing something permitted by the Torah. But the Torah does not require abortion, so this statement as phrased is wrong. A correct (though still I think misleading) way to phrase this would be:

More than half the states will make Orthodox Jewish women and physicians felons for while observing the requirements of Torah.​

But even then, I'm not sure why she thinks this is a relevant standard. Religions are silent on many issues that the law restricts. Neither the Bible nor the Torah provide any guidance on how fast you may drive, and so you can do 100 mph while observing the requirements of both faiths. But it's still illegal.

Government gets to be more restrictive than religions, and vice versa. Religious freedom jurisprudence protects the exercise of religion, but that basically means you can get more leeway to do what your religion requires of you. It doesn't protect your right to do what your religion doesn't prohibit or require.

 

[Ziggurat]

Again your opinion of what facts are does not matter to me given how you've treated the concept in the past.

My opinion of what facts are matches NPR's opinion. Claims are not facts. Again, that's the entire point of their article, and I do not take any exception to the distinction they are drawing, I am in agreement with it. You seem to feel differently for some odd reason, but god knows why, or what you think claims and facts actually are.

 

[JoeMorgue]

CNN
—
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill Thursday criminalizing abortion-inducing drugs that are provided via mail.

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/us/tennessee-abortion-pills-by-mail-bill/index.html

Well that didn't take long, as unsurprising as it is.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Well, no. They criminalize doing something permitted by the Torah. But the Torah does not require abortion, so this statement as phrased is wrong.

Your can argue all day that they are interpreting their holy books incorrectly just as you can with Christians on this matter, but many jews believe it is required in cases where the mother's life is endangered.

 

[Meadmaker]

Well, no. They criminalize doing something permitted by the Torah. But the Torah does not require abortion, so this statement as phrased is wrong. A correct (though still I think misleading) way to phrase this would be:

You are misreading the important part, although the important part is still complete hogwash. Let me explain.

The part about criminalizing something required by Torah was only referring to the discussion about pregnancies where the life of the mother is in danger. The most common interpretation of Torah in that case is that it is, indeed, a duty to preserve the life of the mother.

Here's why the speaker's claim is hogwash:

There will be zero states where it will be illegal to terminate a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is in danger. It won't happen, anywhere.


And, whether speaking of Jewish law or of secular law, there will be plenty of debate about exactly what constitutes danger, and under what circumstances abortion will be considered an offense against God or the state. Nevertheless, the principle will be clear in both cases. The mother's life takes precedence over the fetus.

 

[Bob001]

.....
Government gets to be more restrictive than religions, and vice versa. Religious freedom jurisprudence protects the exercise of religion, but that basically means you can get more leeway to do what your religion requires of you. It doesn't protect your right to do what your religion doesn't prohibit or require.

The point here is that the notion that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception is a religious belief held by some Christians. It is not shared by all Christians, nor by adherents of other faiths, and it is not even supported in other areas of law. Banning abortion imposes on all Americans a religious belief held only by a minority of Americans.

 

[Bob001]

....
There will be zero states where it will be illegal to terminate a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is in danger. It won't happen, anywhere.
.....

Why do you believe that? If the law doesn't explicitly provide such an exception, then under the law it doesn't exist. Doctors and even women can be prosecuted under such law. Some states have already passed such laws. Why do you imagine it can't happen?

 

[Meadmaker]

CNN
—
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill Thursday criminalizing abortion-inducing drugs that are provided via mail.

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/us/tennessee-abortion-pills-by-mail-bill/index.html

Well that didn't take long, as unsurprising as it is.

My intent is to write a post talking about paranoid fantasies about what comes next, but I want to make something clear before I do.

Regulation and/or bans on drugs which destroy an embryo, directly or by preventing implantation in the womb, is not a paranoid fantasy. I assume there will be states that ban some forms of birth control, including "Plan B", and I would strongly suspect the Supreme Court will uphold those bans.

This particular action doesn't make abortifacients illegal, but it does regulate them, and I would be very surprised if some states do not take the next step, which would be to ban them entirely.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There will be zero states where it will be illegal to terminate a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is in danger. It won't happen, anywhere.

1. Then why do Republican politicians keep saying otherwise? (And no I will not spoonfeed you examples, go find them yourself you know as well as I do they are out there regardless of how much you pretend otherwise)

2. What magical pregnancies exist where the mother's life is not in some kind of danger?

3. So ******* what? Women should have be under a death threat to get bodily autonomy?

4. I notice you really went out of your way to not mention rape.

 

[JoeMorgue]

My intent is to write a post talking about paranoid fantasies about what comes next, but I want to make something clear before I do.

Again drop the act.

Being worried that Republicans might do the things THEY ARE SAYING THAT WILL DO is not paranoia.

 

[Meadmaker]

Some states have already passed such laws.

Name one.

 

[Ziggurat]

Your can argue all day that they are interpreting their holy books incorrectly just as you can with Christians on this matter, but many jews believe it is required in cases where the mother's life is endangered.

Sure, but the law permits such cases. In fact, the Supreme Court has already required such exceptions, and as far as I can tell this ruling wouldn't overturn that requirement. There's basically always an exception to any prohibition for when needs must, as they say.

 

[Bob001]

Again drop the act.

Being worried that Republicans might do the things THEY ARE SAYING THAT WILL DO is not paranoia.

Per the oft-quoted advice from Maya Angelou, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

 

[JoeMorgue]

Name one.

"Water is wet"
"NAME ONE!"

No. Stop stalling. It's transparent.

 

[Ziggurat]

The point here is that the notion that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception is a religious belief held by some Christians. It is not shared by all Christians, nor by adherents of other faiths, and it is not even supported in other areas of law. Banning abortion imposes on all Americans a religious belief held only by a minority of Americans.

There will always be some laws which comport with some people's religious beliefs and not other people's religious beliefs. That isn't grounds for disqualifying a law. And if it's just a question of how many people believe or don't believe in a law, well, we have a mechanism for sorting that out: Congress. We are not a direct democracy, so it's not supposed to be a simple matter of majority opinion. Furthermore, Roe v. Wade wasn't decided on that basis in the first place, so how can that be an objection to overturning it?

Given that this is being thrown back to the states, and many states will have quite permissive abortion laws, it's also strange to be arguing about all Americans.