In a legal brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Mississippi law case that could upend Roe v. Wade, Jewish pro-life leaders argue that abortion “violates all Jewish ethics and laws,” constitutes “child sacrifice,” and has created a “silent Holocaust.”
The brief calls on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, and two other pro-abortion decisions, Doe v. Bolton and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
“Seen for what it really is, the abortion holocaust parallels and rises beyond crimes against humanity from which Jews have suffered dearly,” reads the legal brief. “After WWII, international consensus coalesced around the need to hold to account those responsible for genocidal activities…. We must end abortion, an appalling crime against humanity.”
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The pro-life Jewish organizations and leaders who represent the amicus curiae brief are the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation, the Coalition for Jewish Values, Rabbi Yakov David Cohen, director of the Institute of Noahide Code, author and rabbi Chananya Weissman, and Jewish Life League Founder Bonnie Chernin.
“Abortion is antithetical to Torah principles,” reads the brief. “The act of abortion, and the industry that promotes and benefits financially from it, violates all Jewish ethics and morals.”
The brief explains that abortion is permissible under Judaism in the extremely rare cases when the mother’s life is at risk. This occurs in less than 1% of all pregnancies.
“The history of Judaism includes many existential threats to Jewish life in the form of state sponsored mass murder,” reads the brief. “This makes us especially sensitive to the plight of the child in the womb, whose protection under the law was completely abrogated by Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.”
Read the full article at CNS News
Read the full amicus curiae here
Americans United for Life distributed an information packet to 260 pro-life congressional offices. In that packet were materials from AUL itself, the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, Heritage Foundation, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office, and the CJV’s statement on Judaism’s perspective on abortion and the dignity of the human person.