A rabbi makes the case for reproductive rights.
For decades, the Christian religious right’s opposition to abortion has dominated the reproductive rights debate in the United States. Activists spent years pushing states and the federal government toward more restrictive policies; those efforts culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutionally protected right to an abortion.
But Christians aren’t the only people of faith with deeply held religious convictions regarding reproductive rights. Judaism not only teaches that abortion is permitted, but compels Jewish faith leaders to fight for reproductive rights, says Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, an author, scholar in residence for the National Council of Jewish Women, and creator of Rabbis for Repro, a national network of Jewish clergy working to support reproductive rights in their communities and on a national level.
The argument Ruttenberg and other rabbis are making has important implications for the law. If Judaism teaches that abortions are necessary, then laws denying the right to an abortion infringe upon the religious freedoms of Jewish people to have them. In Florida, one rabbi, Barry Silver of L’Dor Va-Dor in Palm Beach County, is suing the state to block a new 15-week abortion ban from going into effect, arguing that the proposed rule restricts religious freedom and amounts to “theocratic tyranny.” (A judge announced he would temporarily block the new law, one day before it was set to take effect, in response to a separate lawsuit.) In Israel, officials announced new policies meant to ease abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Vox spoke with Ruttenberg about what Judaism teaches on abortion, and the role Jewish leaders will play in the next phase of the abortion rights fight.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What does Judaism say about abortion?
Abortion is permitted in Judaism, and when the life of the pregnant person is at stake, it is required. Judaism’s approach to abortion finds its basis in the book of Exodus. There’s a case where two people are fighting, and one person knocks over a pregnant person and causes a miscarriage. It says very clearly, if it’s only a miscarriage, then the person who caused the harm is obligated to pay monetary fines as damages, and if a pregnant person dies, then it is treated as manslaughter. So we see right away that in the book of Exodus it’s very clear that the fetus and pregnant person have different statuses, and causing a miscarriage is not treated as manslaughter. The fetus does not have the same status as a born human. It’s treated as potential life, rather than actual life.
There are two statements in the Talmud, codified in roughly 500 CE, that say for the first 40 days of pregnancy the fetus is “mere water” and doesn’t have any legal status at all, which incidentally is the same in Islam. For the first 40 days, the fetus has zero status, and from then on the fetus is considered a part of the pregnant person’s body — it is “as its mother’s thigh.” The fetus is an extension of the pregnant person until birth. It’s like that old slogan “my body, my choice”: it is literally her body! That makes intuitive sense and resonates with Roe and Casey’s delineation that abortion is permitted until viability. There’s a certain logic to all of that.
I could cite millions of texts through the centuries. We see language stating that emotional pain is just as serious as physical pain in making decisions about abortion. We see that dignity and suffering are legitimate reasons for having an abortion.
Judaism has said again and again that the life, health, and safety of the pregnant person is paramount. Her rights come first.
What do these new restrictions happening in states across the country mean for Jewish people who wish to have an abortion?
This is a violation of our First Amendment rights. It’s definitely a violation of free exercise of religion because it’s not only true that my religion permits me to have an abortion any time that there is need, but also at times I am obligated to have an abortion in order to save my own life. The range of situations in which Judaism would say: “yes, this is go time, you need to take care of yourself” is broader than the state’s in places that are outlawing abortion.
There’s also an establishment clause issue, because the state is making determinations about when life begins based on one very specific Christian interpretation of what that means, but as I’ve mentioned, Judaism has a totally different way of thinking about what the fetus is and how we understand what life is, and how abortion fits into that. The state is preferring one religious philosophy and enshrining it as policy and imposing it on atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and everyone else, when we are supposed to be a country for everyone.
Are there other elements of Jewish tradition that compel you to advocate for reproductive rights?
Yes. In the story of Exodus, we’ve got the Israelites leaving Egypt and being commanded to set up a new society. They’re like, okay, we’re starting from scratch, here’s what a just society is going to look like. There are all sorts of structures set up for economic justice. What the Torah repeats again and again is to take care of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. It’s ancient intersectionality. The Torah knows there are people who will, because of gender, marital, or parental status, be uniquely vulnerable to poverty.
We have to not only set up structures that are good for everybody, but to keep the focus on making sure that those who are most impacted are centered and cared for, and that their needs are at the heart of our work to create justice. For me, to work for abortion justice is to be aware that the people who are most impacted by bans are people who are struggling financially; are Black, Indigenous, and people of color; are young people often trying to do this around parental oversight; are trans men and some nonbinary people; are immigrants; are disabled people; are people in rural communities. We have to always keep our focus on those who are most impacted.
In the American conversation, we like to talk about rights — what rights am I entitled to? In Judaism, we talk about responsibilities and obligations. What am I obligated to? I feel obligated to do this work.
What role did Jewish religious leaders play in helping people secure abortion access in the era before Roe?
Before Roe, there was a network called the Clergy Consultation Service, that was a network of rabbis and Protestant ministers working to help people access abortion care. That work looked like a number of different things depending on where people were and what the need was. It is very natural that rabbis would be part of the activism then. Rabbis for Repro have pledged to preach and teach and speak out and agitate on behalf of abortion justice. It’s very important that we fight for abortion justice not despite our Jewishness, but because of it.
There’s a rabbi in Florida suing the state, arguing that the state’s proposed 15-week ban on abortion access is a violation of religious freedom. What do you make of that, and should we expect to see other lawsuits like this come up?
The National Council of Jewish Women is watching the case very closely, with great interest, and agrees that abortion bans are a violation of religious freedom.
Is there anything about this moment that is giving you hope?
I believe in us. What can I say? I know that power doesn’t break easily, I’m not naïve.
But I’m a student of history, and I know that when enough people come together and say “no”, powerful things can happen. The way out of here, this very narrow place, is going to be hard and long and painful, and it won’t be without a fight. We just have to be willing to show up and be patient. And keep showing up even if we aren’t seeing results today or tomorrow. It takes time and we have to keep working.
The Jewish community is here for this. We’re showing up. And I’m really proud of us.
A task force is calling on the state to provide “comprehensive reparations” to Black Americans.
The common narrative about slavery in the United States is that enslaved Black people were only forced to work on the sprawling cotton fields and sugar plantations of the South — and that it was only the South that built its economy on the institution.
But these stories leave out the experiences of thousands of enslaved African Americans, including those who were transported out west to California in the middle of the 19th century. The California Reparations Task Force, created by Gov. Gavin Newsom in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder, is calling up this history and calling for reparatory justice at the same time.
The task force — a body of nine appointed individuals responsible for studying what a reparations program would look like for the state — launched its effort in 2021, and in June 2022 released a comprehensive interim report that examines the state’s history of slavery as well as the oppression of Black Californians since the state was established in 1850.
The report found that though the 13th Amendment empowered Congress to remove “all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States,” California perpetuated new iterations of harm that have “been innumerable and have snowballed over generations.”
The report is the most thorough government-issued report on race since the 1968 Kerner Commission, which found that racism drove the riots of the late 1960s, Kamilah Moore, chair of the commission, told Vox. “My hope is that people use this report as an educational and organizing tool,” she said.
It details that, in addition to the original harms of enslavement and racial terror, the American and Californian governments engaged in political disenfranchisement against Black people, instituted housing segregation and separate and unequal education, and that racism influenced the development of the state’s infrastructure, creating environmental injustice. The report also pointed out that the federal and state governments have made it harder for Black families to stay together, with Black children overrepresented in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; hindered Black Americans from getting employment opportunities; and made it more difficult for Black Americans to build wealth.
California’s racial wealth gap is understudied, but a few studies of Los Angeles show the disparity. One 2016 study found that the median net worth of white Angeleno households was $355,000 while that of native-born Black Angelenos was $4,000. The same study found that the median value of liquid assets for Black households was $200 compared to $110,000 for white households.
The Reparations Task Force report substantiates the claim for reparations at the state and federal levels. But the commission still has major questions to explore. Mainly: What would reparations even look like? And would California be able to afford the cost?
California’s history of terror easily makes the case for reparations
Though there was a movement to bar the westward expansion of slavery, California’s history with the institution created long-lasting effects, the report’s authors highlighted.
California’s early lawmakers tolerated slavery, and it is estimated that up to 1,500 enslaved Black people lived in California by 1852, according to the report. This was the case despite California joining the Union as a free state in 1850. Enslavers mostly trafficked young men and teenage boys to have them work in gold mines amid the state’s gold rush.
The state passed a fugitive slave law in 1852 that made it “a more proslavery state than most other free states,” the report stated. The law required state officials to help enslavers capture enslaved people who escaped to free states, punished people who tried to help freedom seekers, and limited the enslaved person’s ability to defend themself in court. From 1852 to 1855, anyone accused of being a runaway slave could be sent back to enslavement in the South, even if they had been living in the free state of California since 1850.
And though the federal government in the Reconstruction era abolished slavery, guaranteeing equal protection of the laws and the right to vote, California was slow to sign on to those reforms. It didn’t ratify the Fourteenth Amendment until 1959 and the Fifteenth Amendment until 1962.
This early history had lingering negative effects on life in California that are still felt today. In the early 20th century, the state sometimes held more Ku Klux Klan events than Mississippi or Louisiana, with California KKK members holding top positions in government and police departments, the report points out.
Racial animus informed lawmakers’ decisions around housing, development, education, and family life. The government created segregation through redlining, zoning ordinances, and discriminatory mortgage practices. Black people were sometimes forbidden from living in entire areas and towns, like the suburbs outside of San Francisco and Los Angeles, due to “sundown town” restrictions.
White neighborhoods flourished while Black ones languished since the government actively razed Black areas for alleged “urban renewal” and “park construction,” according to the report. This segregation was a part of school life, too, since the state Supreme Court ruled in 1874 that segregation in public schools was legal. A century later, school desegregation efforts repeatedly failed across the state — and today California is the sixth most segregated state for Black students, according to a study cited in the report.
Disparity is evident in other areas of California life today as well, like the disproportionate representation of Black children in foster homes or the high representation of Black Californians in the state’s legal system as a result of law enforcement’s propensity to stop and arrest them.
“California has this history and the formal plan that we recommend to the governor will reflect the kinds of terror that Black people in California had to endure,” Moore told Vox.
Can California afford the bill?
The report makes dozens of preliminary recommendations to address the glaring disparities it maps out.
For example, to end legal slavery in California, the task force recommends that the state remove specific language in its constitution that allows involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes. To address racial terror, the report suggests that the state hold law enforcement officers accountable for violence by eliminating state law immunities that protect misconduct. To remedy environmental racism, the authors argue for plans to tackle unequal exposure to pollutants. And to address unequal education, the task force wants the state to support Black students with education grants.
While the recommendations are extensive, the task force has yet to suggest cash payments to Black Californians, a pillar of reparatory justice that advocates say could be the most meaningful for residents. At the federal level, economists have estimated that reparations could cost the federal government around $10 trillion to $12 trillion, or about $800,000 for each eligible Black household.
But the task force hasn’t ruled it out. Its report is an interim one, and its members plan to undertake more discussions and research before it must submit its final report to Gov. Newsom. Moore noted that cash reparations aren’t out of the question, particularly with the state’s estimated $97.5 billion state budget surplus.
“California does have the budget to provide reparations in the form of cash payments, and the surplus is even added evidence of the fact that it has the budget,” Moore said.
As of 2020, 39.5 million people reside in California, with 2.8 million, or about 6 percent, identifying as Black. The task force voted that only Black Californians who can prove their direct lineage to enslaved ancestors would be eligible for reparations through the state. Moore says the figure would be within the state’s budget.
Others have argued that in order for cash payments to be reparations, they must close the racial wealth gap in a manner that makes up for the government’s exclusion of Black Americans from programs like Social Security and the G.I. Bill.
According to Moore, the task force will take all these factors into consideration as it works through its next phase.
“We still have a lot to think through,” Moore said. “The final plan for reparations will address payment for rehabilitation, social services, medical services, stolen wealth, satisfaction, and a formal apology.”
Chinese president Xi Jinping swore in John Lee, marking a new era of antidemocratic governance in Hong Kong.
Chinese president Xi Jinping swore in John Lee as Hong Kong’s new chief executive on Friday, marking a new era of antidemocratic governance in the city once known as China’s economic gateway to the West.
Friday was also the 25th anniversary of the United Kingdom’s agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997. That agreement promised a “one country, two systems” governing principle until 2047 — the idea being that although the city would belong to Beijing, Hong Kongers would continue to enjoy a high degree of autonomy relative to mainland citizens, including a freer press, an independent judiciary, and its own local government. However, under Xi’s leadership, China has repeatedly insisted that the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the agreement governing the handover and protecting Hong Kong’s autonomy and civil liberties, is no longer relevant, meaning they think Beijing has every right to assert its authority there.
Lee’s swearing in, and Xi’s visit to Kong Kong to preside over it, are the symbolic culmination of years of increasingly authoritarian crackdowns on the city — and indicate that efforts to curtail civil rights there will only increase as leadership’s ties to Beijing become stronger.
Lee ran uncontested after radical changes to Hong Kong’s electoral laws effectively barred opposition candidates from running. He won 99 percent of a committee vote in May as the only Beijing-approved candidate. Lee is is a career police officer, unlike previous chief executives who had business or civil service expertise. He not only supported 2019’s controversial extradition bill that prompted a year of turmoil in Hong Kong, he oversaw the police force accused of using water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and even live ammunition against protesters.
“It really marks a fundamental shift” for Hong Kong’s future, Eric Yan-ho Lai, the Hong Kong Law Fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law told Vox. “John Lee’s being chosen demonstrates that political security remains top priority” for Beijing.
In a speech Friday, Xi trumpeted the city’s return to order after the past two years of Covid-19 restrictions and the pro-democracy protests of 2019, though the government achieved that order by enforcing its draconian National Security Law, which has jailed many pro-democracy activists, forced others into exile and silenced the independent press.
“After ups and downs, we deeply recognize that Hong Kong cannot afford to be destabilized,” he said.
What was different about Xi’s anniversary speech this time around
Xi’s speech marking the anniversary called on “patriots” — those loyal to Xi and his party — to command political power in Hong Kong. “Nobody in any country or region in the world will allow foreign countries or even traitorous forces and figures to seize power,” he said, echoing his 2017 speech marking the 20-year anniversary of the Hong Kong handover.
“Any attempt to endanger China’s sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government … or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the red line, and is absolutely impermissible,” he said five years ago.
While both speeches framed dissent as sabotage and potentially foreign interference, there was a significant difference between the two: There were no protests this year.
Typically, as Zen Soo writes for the Associated Press, the official anniversary ceremony is followed by a protest march in the afternoon. This time, though, protests weren’t allowed, with the Wall Street Journal’s Selina Chen reporting that police warned even small activist groups to stay out of sight on July 1, and arrested nine people for allegedly planning to commit sedition.
- The whole city has only one dominant voice and others are eradicated. It is quiet and “harmonious” because it has lost its political diversity and freedom of expression. It’s “One Country, Two Systems” failure, not success. pic.twitter.com/a1i8laGa7X — Nathan Law 羅冠聰 (@nathanlawkc) June 30, 2022