Pinned
Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the idea of suing my State and arguing that the ban on gender affirming care is a violation of my religious liberty, has legs. I'm in the @GeorgetownLJ !
Rabbi Daniel Bogard
5,365 posts
Rabbi Daniel Bogard
@RavBogard
Rabbi at @crcstlouis; co-founder of campindigopoint.org 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈; activist in the fight to #ProtectTransKids from Red State governments. (he/him) 🖖
- For Jews who can become pregnant, access to abortion services is a religious *requirement*, and has been for thousands of years. Surprised? Let's dig into some of the texts 🧵 1/
- Replying to @RavBogardAll of which is to say: laws that limit or criminalize abortion aren't just violations of the human rights of every person who can become pregnant, but are also infringements on the religious liberty of every American Jew, and an imposition of governmental Christianity on us all.
- Replying to @RavBogardIn fact, in the Talmud (circa 600ce), we are told clearly that a fetus is not an independent life by none other than that the great Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who said that "a fetus is considered a part of the pregnant person's body, equivalent to their thigh." 4/
- Replying to @RavBogardThis stands in sharp contrast with the next verse, which states that "a life for a life, an eye for an eye..." The Torah literally couldn't be more explicit: a fetus is not a human life. 3/
- Replying to @RavBogardLet's start with the Torah. In Exodus 21:22 we get a clear statement that a fetus is *not* a person: "When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant person and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined..." 2/
- Replying to @RavBogardThis is what rabbis mean when we say that "access to abortion is a religious requirement for Jews." Because there are situations where Judaism doesn't just allow abortion, but in fact traditionally *requires* abortion (when the life of the pregnant person is threatened) 9/
- Replying to @RavBogardMishnah Oholot 7:6- "A person who is having trouble giving birth, they abort the fetus and take it out limb by limb, because existing life comes before potential life. If most of the child has come out already they do not touch it, for we do not push off one life for another" 6/
- Replying to @RavBogard"But only when the pregnant person's life is in physical danger??!?" Nope! Not just literally their life, but also their well-being, their mental health, and all sorts of other explanations that encompass the vast majority of the reasons that folks pursue abortions. 10/
- I feel like people who aren't trans--or the parents of trans kids--don't get how bleak this is right now. We're having the same conversations at night here in Missouri that my cousins had in Germany in the '20s. When do we flee? Where do we go? Is the next state over far enough?
- Replying to @RavBogard'Rodef' is a legal category in Judaism for someone/something on the way to kill a human being. Jewish law obligates us to stop a Rodef at any cost--up to and including taking their life. Thus, a pregnancy that endangers life is considered a Rodef and *must* be terminated. 8/
- Replying to @RavBogardThe Mishnah (200ce)--in a section dealing with the death penalty--even says that if a pregnant person is set to be executed, you don't delay the execution unless they are literally in labor. Otherwise? The fetus is considered just another part of their body. (Arikhin 1:4) 5/
- Replying to @RavBogard*TERFing will get you immediately blocked
- Lest you think I was not absolutely intentional about my language.
