Orthodox rabbinic group slams lawsuit by ‘woke’ rabbis claiming abortion is a ‘Jewish value’

“Let us ask these five rabbis claiming to speak for Judaism: what positive commandment do they fulfill when stopping the heart of an unborn baby?”

By World Israel News Staff

An Orthodox Jewish umbrella group has denounced a lawsuit against the state of Missouri by a dozen “woke” rabbis and other faith leaders which claims that the right to abortion is a Jewish value, describing it as a “desecration of God’s name that is simply beyond words.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v. Wade, Missouri Governor Michael Parson last year activated the state’s “Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act,” which barred abortions except in cases of a medical emergency.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in St. Louis Circuit Court, more than a dozen faith leaders, including five rabbis, claim that Missouri violated the separation of church and state by “enshrining…religious views into laws.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents more than 2,000 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, slammed the lawsuit as “irrational.”

“To assert that access to an elective procedure is somehow a religious obligation is inherently irrational, defying all logic and reason,” said CJV Midwestern Regional Vice President Rabbi Ze’ev Smason.

“And to cloak this demand in the mantle of Judaism is heinous. Let us ask these five rabbis claiming to speak for Judaism: what positive commandment do they fulfill when stopping the heart of an unborn baby? What Hebrew blessing do they recite upon feticide?”

CJV said in a statement that it rejected three ideas upon which the lawsuit was based: that a pro-life position places religion over science, that valuing fetal life is uniquely tied to one religion, and that legislators should be expected to discard their religious views when formulating public policy positions.

Contrary to the lawsuit’s narrative, science, CJV noted, “offers compelling evidence that a child is alive before birth.”

“The rejection of elective abortion is also rooted in the Jewish Bible, the foundation of monotheism and moral authority,” the rabbis said.

According to CJV, barring people from taking “personal religious views” into consideration on matters involving morality and ethics is a violation of both “common sense” and “democratic principles.”

“This lawsuit is without basis in either Jewish or secular law,” said CJV Vice President and adjunct professor of law, Rabbi Dov Fischer, said.

“That it was filed by people calling themselves ‘rabbis’ is simply outrageous. Their manifest ignorance of Jewish history and the sacred value of human life is in line with their ignorance of Jewish belief. Their woke effort to distort core Jewish values constitutes a desecration of G-d’s name that is simply beyond words, and they should be ashamed.”