June 29, 2022
Chochmat Nashim is distressed by the manner in which many in the Orthodox Jewish community have reacted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. As an organization that stands up for the voices, images, rights, and representation of Jewish women, and as an organization committed to Halacha, we fully recognize the complexity of the topic of abortion in the public arena. Halacha does not permit abortion “on demand,” a phrase that for some in the so-called “pro-life” camp has come to suggest “for no reason” (women don’t have abortions “for no reason”).
At the same time, the recent Supreme Court decision puts the lives and wellbeing of Orthodox women, some of whose stories you can read below, in grave danger. The states that are taking full advantage of the new “carte blanche” to ban abortion will not allow Orthodox residents who are halachically allowed, or even required, to abort. We would encourage the Orthodox people and organizations that are cheering the overturning of Roe v. Wade to reckon with the loss of religious freedom for Orthodox Jews, when rabbis permit or require abortion and the secular state will not allow it.
We would like to pause and recognize the realities for women who terminate their pregnancies, which even the most empathetic and compassionate men will not experience, in their own words:
Taken from personal testimonies and Avital Chizik Goldschmidt in The Forward
- “At our 20 week ultrasound, we found out that our baby had Trisomy 13. This included numerous deformities incompatible with life. I was 26 and I never thought I would have to contemplate an abortion. But I knew carrying a child that would die would undo me. We asked a posek, who said we should terminate — to save both mother and child from suffering. I told everyone I’d miscarried. I did everything right, and asked all the right authorities, but I (rightly) expected to be shamed for what I had done. The celebration of the undoing of Roe v. Wade reflects a lack of understanding of what we went through.”
- “I was raped by an acquaintance and was so scared. I didn’t want to tell anyone, not even my husband. I did it alone. I was not emotionally able to talk to anyone at the time — and “their rules” [that would have meant carrying to term] would have killed me.”
- “During my 20-week scan, the sonographer detected severe problems with the baby. It was agony. This baby was beyond wanted. But his prognosis was so bad that he would have no quality of life if he made it to birth. Continuing the pregnancy would have severely impacted our family. We spoke to our rabbi, who consulted with a gadol [great rabbi]. His message was: Not only was this [abortion] halachically permissible, given the prognosis of my baby, it was something I should do. To anyone who hasn’t been there, abortion is a theoretical issue. And no one ever thinks they will have to deal with it on a personal level. It’s all well and good to have opinions about abortion, but until you’re in the situation, it’s impossible to really know what you’re talking about. Halacha is compassionate and we should be, too.”
- “My daughter was 3 months old and her brother was just shy of 2 years. I had severe, undiagnosed post-partum depression and occasional thoughts of suicide when I learned, during a routine check-up, that I was pregnant. I could barely tend to my two babies at home, and ending it all seemed like an appealing alternative to life. I asked for a referral to an abortion provider. The doctor was a frum woman who didn’t recoil at the outrageous question from a young chassidish wife. ‘This must be the first time anyone asked this question in this office,’ I said to her. ‘You’d be surprised at how many women came before you,’ she told me simply.”
- “In my first pregnancy, I had a subchorionic hematoma and severe placental abruption. I kept hemorrhaging so badly that I was in the ER a dozen times needing transfusions. Most OBs told me my life was at risk and I should terminate the pregnancy. My rav agreed… as my life was clearly at risk. Baruch Hashem, it stabilized and I did not have to make that choice. But I came very very close. The way some trigger laws are written, I would NOT have had that choice. And it was a choice halacha recognized. Realize that all the rabbonim who are cheering this decision… they are essentially telling me my life does not matter an inch. And that is deeply hurtful.”
The public response in the Orthodox world toward the overturning of Roe v. Wade, particularly when it includes celebratory glee, indicates that the true facts of abortion in the world at large, and in the frum world specifically, are not widely known.
Women at serious physical or mental risk are discounted because they are presumed to be the extremely rare exception to the healthy rule. In addition, many more pregnancies are not compatible with life than the recent public response acknowledges. Moreover, terrible events, such as the incest a 13-year-old girl experienced from her father, or the rape of a 15-year-old girl by her therapist, happen in the Orthodox community far more than anyone wants to acknowledge. Those who support bans with exceptions for incest or rape should note even in these cases, the process is not simple: state requirements may include reporting the crime, which means public shame and communal shunning for girls who should be eligible to end the pregnancies forced on them, without adding to their trauma and pain.
We call on those who support abortion bans and severe limitations to read the statistics on who actually receives abortions and at what point in pregnancy — and ask themselves if their stance reflects reality, the needs of the community, and Halacha. Judaism has always been a religion of nuance, with its appreciation of the “middle ground.” It is not the approach of those Catholics, for example, who treat each fetus as a living being, equal to the status of its mother. In Judaism, the question of abortion is a serious one for each woman who must grapple with it, given her own circumstances, likely in conjunction with her doctor, her rabbi, and, where relevant, her husband.
When Orthodox Jews support state bans and restrictions on abortion, they put secular law over the Torah, in ways that endanger the lives and wellbeing of Jewish women and girls, superseding the Jewish obligation to “live according to the mitzvot” (וחי בהם), with all the nuance and individuation of rabbinic authority.
