Leading Orthodox groups cheer end of Roe v. Wade

Leading Orthodox groups cheered the end of Roe v. Wade. Many Orthodox women are panicking.

Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA)—Pam Scheininger and J. David Bleich have this much in common: They are Orthodox Jews who are preoccupied with Jewish ethics and teach at New York City law schools.

But when Scheininger looks at an American map, she sees 16 states where Orthodox Jewish women would not be able to have an abortion otherwise sanctioned by Jewish law. Bleich sees a different number—zero.

Disagreements among Jews over where Jewish and state laws intersect on abortion, once theoretical, have taken on urgency in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last month overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 court decision that enshrined a woman’s right to an abortion.

The differences of opinion are especially acute among the Orthodox, where there is a yawning gap between a faction that says the reversal of Roe v. Wade has triggered a crisis that will put the lives of women at risk and another that welcomes the decision as life-affirming and aligned with traditional Jewish values. The latter position comes as Orthodox groups have in recent years drifted politically to the right.

“Society, through its laws, should promote a social ethic that affirms the supreme value of life,” Agudath Israel of America, the umbrella body for Haredi Orthodox groups, said in a statement welcoming the reversal of Roe v. Wade. “Allowing abortion on demand, in contrast, promotes a social ethic that devalues life.” The phrase “abortion on demand” irks many, including among the Orthodox, because it is seen as diminishing the thought that goes into the decision, and because even under Roe v. Wade, there were abortion restrictions.

Orthodox groups have yet to address how they will reconcile situations in which halacha, the body of Jewish law, mandates an abortion, and a state forbids it. There is already chatter in Orthodox online forums and on social media about setting up a network for Orthodox Jewish women in states where abortion is banned to travel to places like New York, where it is not.

Bleich advanced the proposal on Torah Musings, an Orthodox ideas exchange, after the court decision was first leaked in May. A number of Orthodox Jewish women already are pushing back, saying such a system would be impracticable and would compound the trauma of having an abortion.

The Agudath Israel statement said that abortions mandated by Jewish law are “extraordinary, rare exceptions to the rule that fetal life is entitled to protection.”

Bleich, a rabbi and professor of ethics at Yeshiva University and its law school, Cardozo, says those exceptions do not contradict any state laws.

“As of today, I do not think there is a single state which forbids abortion when the mother’s life is at stake,” Bleich says, adding, “I think district attorneys are smart enough not to bring a course of action” when a fetus threatens the life of a mother.

Scheininger, the president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and a court attorney referee who teaches law at the New York College of Technology, says prosecution was inevitable, in part because some laws were vague and did not account for health threats short of imminent death, which would be considered under Jewish law. Halacha includes exceptions for mental health, and some states do not; Georgia explicitly excludes it.

Orthodox Jewish women are going to have those who assist them in getting an abortion “prosecuted for availing themselves, or trying to avail themselves of halachically required abortions,” she says.

“It’s that simple,” she says. “It’s going to happen and women will die.”

The Orthodox Union, the umbrella body for the Modern Orthodox, has sought to straddle the divide.

“We cannot support absolute bans on abortion—at any time point in a pregnancy—that would not allow access to abortion in lifesaving situations,” it said after the decision came down. “Similarly, we cannot support legislation that does not limit abortion to situations in which medical (including mental health) professionals affirm that carrying the pregnancy to term poses real risk to the life of the mother.”

Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s Washington director, says his group and its state offices were conducting a review of the state laws before considering further action, including lobbying for changes to laws. It’s already clear, he says, that the laws will trigger litigation, although he could not say yet if his organization would join any such lawsuits.

“Most of the legislation that’s out there has some sort of physical health and other health exception, but because of how dramatic the changes are because of the Supreme Court, there still needs to be implementation by each of the states,” he says. “It’s going to be a long haul.” He predicted that the Supreme Court would soon have to resolve the issue again.

Indeed, there have already been reports of confusion and fear among the physicians who provide abortions because so many of the state laws are written vaguely.

“We are currently having internal discussions about various matters related to the overturning of Roe,” Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudath Israel’s Washington director, says. “We are also planning to consult with our rabbinic leadership.”

Outside of the Orthodox sector, most Jewish organizations, which trend politically liberal, have said they will act to oppose abortion bans. And within three days of the Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, Israel loosened its already liberal abortion regulations.

The Orthodox establishment may soon come under pressure to make clear what steps it will take to protect women who need an abortion. Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll says the reversal was lighting up online private forums for Orthodox Jewish women.

“It’s chaos,” says Keats-Jaskoll, a co-founder of Chochmat Nashim, which means “the wisdom of women,” a group that advocates for better female representation in Orthodox decision-making.

The gap within the Orthodox Jewish community, Keats-Jaskoll says, is between women who have had abortions or who have at least contemplated them, and the men who she says have no idea what goes into contemplating an abortion.

“The perceptions of who gets abortions versus who actually gets abortions are really far apart,” she says. “I think some people have no idea who actually ends pregnancies. There are people thinking willy-nilly, a woman’s waking up at 39 weeks saying, ‘I decided I changed my mind.’”

Keats-Jaskoll shares an account posted to a private forum from a woman who had an abortion in 2001, in New Jersey, which allows abortions in cases where the fetus is not likely to survive childbirth.

“At 21 weeks we found out there were multiple significant deformities,” the woman wrote. “The baby could survive in utero but could not live long outside of the womb. He would be poked and prodded and subjected to many treatments…but would die anyway.”

The woman, who consented to KeatsJaskoll sharing the account as long as she remained anonymous, said she and her husband consulted with a rabbi, who advised them to consult with a posek, an arbiter of Jewish law.

“The posek said that to save mother and baby suffering, the pregnancy should be terminated,” she said. “Had the law been

Within three days of the Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, Israel loosened its already liberal abortion regulations.