World

Abortion Fight

Jewish groups plan to battle Supreme Court decision.

Rachel Mauro
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Washington

S

upreme Court decisions usually
are considered final, but Jewish
groups that favor abortion rights
are taking last week's ruling upholding a
ban on late-term abortions to lawmakers.
The groups, which consider the April
18 ruling a rollback of the landmark 1973
Roe V. Wade decision that upheld abor-
tion as a matter of privacy and a woman's
choice, say they will now go to state leg-
islatures and to Congress, and ultimately
make it a matter for the 2008 presidential
elections.
"This isn't going to go away:' said Phyllis
Schneider, president of the National
Council of Jewish Women, perhaps the
most vocal Jewish group advocating for
reproductive rights. "This is the beginning
of a new fight now."
Justice Anthony
Kennedy wrote in
his majority ruling
that those oppos-
ing a 2003 U.S. law
banning late-term
abortions "have not
demonstrated that
the Act would be
unconstitutional in a large fraction of rel-
evant cases."
Kennedy said other procedures are
available to women whose lives are threat-
ened by their pregnancies.
Reaction from Jewish groups was swift.
The decision's "disregard for the rights
of the so-called 'fraction of women who,
for a range of reasons, including the pres-
ervation of their own lives, need specific
reproductive health services, is heartless
and insensitive the Reform movement's
Religious Action Center said.
Hadassah: The Women's Zionist
Organization of America said the court
"inappropriately inserted itself into the
personal lives of American women."
The minority decision in the 5-4 ruling,
written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who is Jewish, said the majority decision
"chips away" at women's rights.
Ginsburg wrote that the ruling "recalls
ancient notions about women's place in

society and under the Constitution ideas
that have long since been discredited."
Supporters of the law say "health excep-
tions" are murky and note that the bill
includes an exception when birth would
threaten a woman's life. Opponents coun-
ter that women in such danger may obtain
the abortion only through a legal chal-
lenge, a process they say is burdensome.
Among Jewish groups, only the fervently
Orthodox Agudath Israel of America
praised the decision.
"At a time when social and cultural
trends tend to undervalue human life,
laws that prohibit the killing of partially
delivered fetuses serve as a vital reminder
of the enormity of the moral issues sur-
rounding the taking of human life
Agudah said.
Other groups expressing disap-
pointment in the decision included the
Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish
Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella

The ruina "recalls ancient notions
out women's place in society?'

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

38

April 26 . 2007

body for Jewish community relations
councils across the country.
"We hope Congress will act to reverse
the unfortunate legislation that triggered
this decision:' JCPA Chairwoman Lois
Frank said.
The Orthodox Union, the modern
Orthodox umbrella body, had no com-
ment. In the past it has said that decisions
on abortion — including late-term abor-
tion, a method that conservative groups
call "partial-birth abortion" — should
be left to the mother, her doctor and her
cleric.
Jewish religious law considers the
mother's health paramount, and Jewish
activists — even the conservative — tra-
ditionally have sought to write protections
for women into abortion legislation.
This was a case where Halachah, or
Jewish law, and justice should coincide,
said Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of
Lilith, a Jewish feminist magazine, "and it

certainly doesn't with this Supreme Court
decision."
"There is a sense I have that Jewish
women have not been on the ramparts as
much as they used to be she said. "The
question is why and what do we do now"
that can help mitigate this decision.
Dr. Paul Blumenthal, a professor of
obstetrics at Stanford University, said
the decision undermined the physician-
patient relationship.
"It means that women are no longer
going to get the best possible care from
physicians because a lot of clinical deci-
sion-making is taken out of our hands:'
he said.
The immediate political focus, NCJW's
Schneider said, would be on a Democratic
effort in the U.S. Congress to codify the
Roe v. Wade decision into law. Lead spon-
sors for the Freedom of Choice Act in both
houses are Jewish: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-
Calif., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
"NCJW will certainly rev itself up and
be working" on the act, Schneider said.
The probability of a presidential veto
would be less important than the fact that
passing the act "puts Congress on record
in support of the right to choose."
The fight will be defined in part by
where anti-abortion groups empowered
by the decision take their reinvigorated
efforts to end abortion
"It's likely two-fold, both at the state
level and in Washington on Capitol Hill,"
said Jeff Sinensky, general counsel for the
American Jewish Committee. "We're sure
to see efforts around the country to intro-
duce anti-abortion legislation."
The AJCommittee, which filed an amic-
us brief in the case, expressed its "disap-
pointment" with the ruling.
"AJC opposes governmental interference
in a woman's ability to choose the safest
medical procedures that best protect her
ability to bear children in the future," the
group said.
Sinensky said the decision would ulti-
mately play out in the 2008 elections.
"Obviously it pushes the issue of abor-
tion rights into the presidential campaign
as a major issue he said.
Schneider said NCJW would main-
tain its aggressive posture regarding the
makeup of the Supreme Court. "We'll be
watching upcoming judicial nominations:'

she said.
NCJW was nearly alone among activ-
ist groups in aggressively campaigning
against President Bush's two successful
court nominees, John Roberts and Samuel
Alito. The pair tipped the balance since
2000, when the court last considered a
late-term ban and rejected it.
"This ruling underscores once again
that the composition of the Supreme Court
matters," the NCJW statement said. "Who
serves on the court has a direct bearing on
our ability to exercise our constitutional
rights, including reproductive freedom."
It's a message Hadassah was coming
around to, said Shelley Klein, the organiza-
tion's director of advocacy.
"It's strikingly clear that the Supreme
Court and the federal court system are no
longer the bulwark of rights we hoped it
would be she said. "If federal courts do
not protect rights, then it comes back to
legislatures. It makes Congress more sig-
nificant, states more significant."

See Point/Counterpoint, page 41.

JTA Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas
contributed to this story.

Answering
Israel's Critics

The Charge
Britain's National Union of
Journalists voted earlier this month
to endorse a boycott of Israel cit-
ing, among other things, the Jewish
state's "military adventures" in
Lebanon and Gaza.

The Answer
Israel's army is a defense force. Its
actions in Lebanon and Gaza are
responses to terrorism, kidnapping
and missile barrages directed to kill
Israeli civilians.

- Allan Gale, Jewish Community

Relations Council

of Metropolitan Detroit