Posted on 12/07/2023 9:55:10 AM PST by Morgana
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Court of Appeals questioned attorneys this week on exceptions to the state’s abortion ban in a case involving residents who are suing on grounds that it violates a state religious freedom law.
The class action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of five anonymous residents and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice, argues Indiana’s abortion ban violates the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was approved by Republican lawmakers in 2015.
The suit was originally filed in September 2022 and a county judge sided with the residents last December.
Indiana later appealed the decision. The court heard arguments Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse, but did not indicate when it would rule on the appeal.
The lawsuit argues the ban violates Jewish teachings that “a fetus attains the status of a living person only at birth” and that “Jewish law stresses the necessity of protecting the life and physical and mental health of the mother prior to birth as the fetus is not yet deemed to be a person.” It also cites theological teachings allowing abortion in at least some circumstances by Islamic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Pagan faiths.
Solicitor General James Barta argued in court that the ban does not violate the law because “the unborn are persons entitled to protections.” Three judges hearing arguments peppered him with questions about current exemptions to the abortion ban, including in limited cases of rape and incest.
“Aren’t religious beliefs just as important as those concerns?” Judge Leanna K. Weissmann asked.
The judges also questioned ACLU of Indiana’s legal director Ken Falk about the state Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to uphold the ban. Falk said at least some of the residents have changed their sexual practices because of the ban despite of their religion’s teaching on abortion.
A spokesperson for the Indiana Attorney General’s office said in a written statement it looks forward to the court’s ruling. “We once again stood up for the rights of the most vulnerable today,” the statement said.
The suit is one of many across the country wherein religious freedom is cited as a reason to overturn a state’s abortion ban, including one in Missouri and one in Kentucky.
In the Missouri case, 13 Christian, Jewish and Unitarian leaders are seeking a permanent injunction barring the state’s abortion ban. The lawyers for the plaintiffs said at a court hearing state lawmakers intended to “impose their religious beliefs on everyone” in the state.
The lawsuit will likely to go to the state Supreme Court. Indiana’s near total abortion ban went into effect in August after the Indiana Supreme Court upheld it in the face of a separate legal challenge from the ACLU.
The ACLU of Indiana revamped its efforts impede the ban in November. In a separate and amended complaint, abortion providers are seeking a preliminary injunction on the ban in order to expand its medical exemptions and block the requirement that abortions be performed at a hospital.
Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The near total ban makes exceptions for abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest and to protect the life and physical health of the mother or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
I know what God said about this subject.
This is NOT of God this is of Molech.
Are you all paying attention? Do I have your attention?
Exodus 21
22 If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child, and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman's husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award. 23 But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life.
There are more Bible verses and I'm sure you all will post them but I'll start with that one.
Huh ... interesting. I'm not convinced that's true. Can some of our friendly local Jewish FReepers help out with this?
Next up: Muslim beheading of non-believers is fine because their religion calls for it.
Islam teaches to rape infidel women. Shall we do away with sexual assault laws too?
EC
JINOs — Jews In Name Only
Worse than that.
Revelation 2.9
this is not the first time I’ve posted an article like this.
“The near total ban makes exceptions for abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest and to protect the life and physical health of the mother or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.”
Based on this, I don’t see how the law is in conflict with Judaism. It seems to be consistent with it.
According to Jacob Neusner, a Talmudic scholar, the Talmud forbids abortion, except in one circumstance. If the life, not the health, not the psychological health, of the pregnant mother is endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, an abortion is not merely permitted, it is required, even of it needs to be done on the sabbath. We do not trade a life for a life.
But your honor, being prosecuted for murder violates my Aztec, Mayan, Inkan religious beliefs which encourage human sacrifice.
For rape? One crime for another?
I am not familiar with the Indiana law but it seems to me if the law does not extend personhood to the fetus arguing that it does so (by stating Jewish teaching says otherwise) would not be a valid argument.
Instead the ban is likely based on the science of fetal development which is not religion based and is not discriminating against any faith.
I believe Satanists tried the same religious freedom argument in a similar case and it was rejected.
that is NOT Jewish or Christian teaching!!!
no way!
at some point the court will need to dismiss a case when it is predicated on such an absurdly erroneous premise
Cannibalism is okay?
The real issue is abortionists who work outside of a hospital will lose money.
“The 2023 Florida Statutes (including Special Session C)
Title XLVI
CRIMES
Chapter 782
HOMICIDE
782.36 Exceptions.—
(1) A patient receiving a partial-birth-abortion procedure may not be prosecuted under this act.
(2) This act does not apply to a suction or sharp curettage abortion.”
Why are such exceptions even included in law?
If the woman next door should have a doctor remove a hemorrhoid she would not fear being charged with a homicide.
Does the state also enforce the Jewish teachings regarding homosexuality?
IOW words, the killing of alive non-persons cannot be forbidden.
Does the presumed rabbinical teaching have anything to say about the killing of innocents who are non-persons?
It’s begging the question to leap from “It’s not a person yet” to “It’s ok to kill it.” For all we know, the classification of non-personhood was directed around property rights, inheritance laws, or other practices of the religion that could not be imposed/imputed to the unborn.
Did they cite a general endorsement for killing of non-persons as OK? Of course not. They’re just coloring outside the lines, trying to drag in a phony aura of religious freedom to justify their desires.
Pretty sure Jewish people are non-persons to Hamas, so there is that. “Context” is everything these days.
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