Two weeks ago there was a story in these pages headlined “Pro-Choice clergy take to the airwaves” announcing that a group of Jewish and gentile clergy was forming a chapter of Clergy for Choice.
“The clergy group has begun to monitor legislative activity as well [as broadcast its opinions on the air]; in fact, it was formed as a response to a bill passed overwhelmingly last year by the R.I. Senate threatening to eliminate a woman’s right to choose.” I also favor reproductive rights (the right of fetuses to be born) and would have phrased it, “a bill passed overwhelmingly reflecting the will of the people of the state of Rhode Island to eliminate a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.”
The Clergy for Choice spokesperson also said that “the Hebrew bible and rabbinic writings support individual choice according to one’s own conscience and religious beliefs.” The do? The Hebrew bible gives women the right to terminate pregnancy according to her conscience and religious beliefs? In a book filled with the joy of mothers who give birth, the agony of the infertile? The Hebrew scriptures I read includes this from Deuteronomy 30:19 “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” That Hebrew bible? The rabbis? They permit the dismemberment of the fetus at the last moment if the birth is threatening the life of the mother, and yes, there is more recent responsa extending that principle to cover cases affecting the mother’s physical and mental health or in the case of rape and incest, but according to Isaac Klein, in his A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, “When abortion is desired for reasons of convenience, however, it is forbidden.”
Barbara Kavadias from the national group of clergy for choice skips the text-based rhetoric: “We [Jews] are pro-choice because of our faith. Pro-choice is an individual choice and it is not necessarily pro-abortion. We believe that no one; not pharmacists, not doctors, not hospitals, not the government should be able to impose their religious beliefs on us.” Does Barbara really speak for Jews? Or only for Jews who agree with her? The quotation leaves us to assume that Jews favor the right of mothers to terminate their pregnancies if they are of a mind to. We do? I’m a Jew and I don’t.
By now, most of my friends are appalled. I can hear them even before they collar me at schul, school or supermarket. “Josh, how could you, a liberal, a progressive, an advocate of human rights be pro-life?” (Yeah, yeah, I know, they’ll be smart enough to say “anti-choice” but it’s more fun the way I’ve phrased it.)
In fact, I do believe in choice. I believe that women can choose to have protected or unprotected sex or abstain from sex. I believe that men should choose to take responsibility for their sexual acts. I believe that a woman whose baby to a medical certainty is going to live a short, painful, life may choose to terminate her pregnancy to spare the child inevitable suffering and early death. I believe that a woman raped may legitimately choose to abort. I believe that no one has the right to choose to deny her child the right to smell the scent of fresh cut grass, to hit a home run, to meet and marry someone they love. NOTE: THIS BECAME THIS IN PRINTED ARTICLE.WORDS IN BOLD ADDED BY EDITOR, NOT ME: I believe that no one, not even she, has the right to choose to deny her child the right to smell the scent of fresh cut grass, to hit a home run, to meet and marry someone they love. Advocating state sanctioned abortion announces to the world that we are not responsible for our actions, that actions have no consequences, that do-overs are permitted. Sometimes they are, but never in anything important, never in taking a life.
To answer the question how, if I’m a liberal can I be in the pro-life camp I’m a liberal because there is poverty out there that must be eradicated, because there are workers being exploited, because there are rain forests being cut down and rivers being polluted. Liberals take the side of the underdog, of the voiceless, of black people in the south under segregation, of the Jews in Germany under the Nazis and in Russia under the Communists. I’m a liberal because I believe government must defend of the defenseless. Is there a more defenseless group of human beings than those developing in the womb of their mothers? They have no vote, they have no voice. But they have life. That’s why I’m a liberal who is pro-life. That’s why I’m deeply saddened when clergy and laypeople chose expediency over morality, death over life.
Clergy for Conscience, anyone?
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