Jews and Muslims to the rescue.
In Indiana, of all places.
The ACLU is bringing a suit against Indiana's regressive, sadistic abortion ban based on the fact that it infringes on the religious rights of anyone who doesn't subscribe to the fantasy that life begins at dinner the night before. Jewish people, for instance, don't believe the fetus has a soul until it draws its first independent breath. We prioritize the life of the pregnant person above the life of the fetus for the entirety of the pregnancy, including in situations that put the pregnant person's emotional health at risk. With the imposition of the GOP's fetus-fetish laws all over the nation, however, Jews and others whose religions don't subscribe to the ideology of these nutters are fighting fire with fire.
Marion County Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued a preliminary injunction against the Republican-backed law, which prohibits abortions with limited exceptions for rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormalities or a serious health risk to the mother. The plaintiffs have argued that the measure infringes on religious freedom protected by another state law.
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Welch issued her injunction after a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice and five individual women challenged the abortion law under Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said the plaintiffs represented religions including Judaism and Islam as well as "independent spiritual belief systems."
"The Court finds that S.E.A. 1 substantially burdens the religious exercise of the Plaintiffs," Welch wrote, using the formal name of the law, in granting the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction while the challenge to its legality proceeds.
I've long argued that guidelines like when we can detect a fetal heartbeat or whether or not a fetus can experience pain were bullshit standards upon which to depend for determining at what point in a pregnancy abortion is acceptable. As science advances, changes, and transforms, what if that ability to detect such things gets earlier and earlier?
Why are people who don't believe in science making decisions about when and/or whether a person should push a human through their birth canal, no matter the circumstance? Why are people who believe in a gigantic all-seeing but invisible man in the sky, and not shockingly, don't know the difference between a vagina and a urethra deciding how I should use either?
These sadistic hypocrites may argue that it's not religion that motivates them - it's the SCIENCE! It's actually MURDER to remove a fetus from a uterus! (Wait, even a dead one? Yes, they argue that is evil and should be illegal, too!) This ACLU religious freedom argument, though, is especially delicious, though, because we all know — WE ALL KNOW that religion is the forced birther's strongest cudgel, the biggest motivator to achieve their goal of complete domination and maintenance of their imagined cis-male supremacy. And here we have members of other, older religions saying, "Slow down, tiger, not so fast. See, in MY religion..."
As my fellow clinic escort said earlier today, "It's dumb that a simple body autonomy argument doesn't defeat abortion restrictions, but the malicious compliance with 'religious freedom' laws has a sweet feeling here."
