A recent court case about religious liberty helps to show the moral case for a right to abortion.
Abortion bans often have exceptions for rape, incest and lethal fetal defects. These exceptions presuppose that in some cases, the suffering of pregnant women matters enough to outweigh whatever rights a fetus may have. In its recent rulings on religious liberty, the Supreme Court has said that states can’t treat religious reasons any worse than comparable secular reasons for wanting legal exceptions to broadly applicable laws.
An Indiana court has therefore held — correctly, I’ll argue — that abortion must therefore be permitted for religious reasons. As the exceptions proliferate, in each case because of certain burdens on pregnant women, they highlight that any unwanted pregnancy generally involves comparable burdens.
A group of plaintiffs sued under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Among them are Jews who assert a religious obligation to terminate pregnancy under certain circumstances. In liberal Judaism — which is to say, for most American Jews — a woman has a duty to exercise her judgment about what is necessary to her own well-being. This duty may require her to end a pregnancy.
OldSundance
Article URL : https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4920547-viewing-abortion-rights-through-the-lens-of-religious-liberty-is-revealing/