Halacha, Abortion and The Beginning of the End

Well, they did it. The Supreme Court has upheld the reactionary Congress' partial-birth abortion ban. The dissenting 4 justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter) explain how bad this decision is:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking in the courtroom for the dissenters, called the ruling "an alarming decision" that refuses "to take seriously" the Court's 1992 decision in Casey v. Planned Parenthood reaffirming most of Roe v. Wade and its 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart striking down a state partial-birth abortion law.

Ginsburg, in a lengthy statement, said "the Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." She said the federal ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power." (emphasis mine)

Key line again: "For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." This is against halacha. Jewish law is pretty clear that late term abortions are forbidden when done for recreational purpose but are commanded to save the life of the mother.

For all you hard-right Republican Orthodox Jews, this is what you have allowed to happen: because you've been blinded by the false alarms of a liberal culture war, you voted and enabled right wing Christianists to take over government which has led to a direct opposition to halacha. Put another way, George Bush's supreme court has made it illegal to follow a cardinal ethic of Judaism: pikuach nefesh.

Let me be on record: it is better to allow gay marriage than to have a mother die because it's illegal to save her life.