In one month, voters in Kentucky will decide whether there is a constitutional right to abortion in their state. As voters consider whether or not to put an abortion ban into their state’s constitution, three women—all Jewish mothers—have put their names on a lawsuit against Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to strike down the state’s near-total abortion ban and fetal personhood laws.
The abortion ban, except in cases of risk of death to the pregnant person, has already been challenged by two abortion clinics in the state. The three women—Lisa Sobel, Jessica Kalb, and Sarah Baron—are the first to publicly attach their names to a religious freedom complaint against abortion bans, though there are suits in Indiana and Florida brought by Jewish plaintiffs. Sobel spoke to the Lexington Herald Leader about motherhood, her faith, and her fear over trying to grow her family under the state’s draconian anti-abortion laws.
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Having her first child, a daughter, was a “shocking and crazy and heartbreaking” experience, Sobel told the paper, as she and her husband resorted to in vitro fertilization after years of being unable to conceive. That cost tens of thousands of dollars—some of which was donated by the Jewish community, and lead to a near-death experience for Sobel, who lost dangerous amounts of blood in childbirth. She and her husband would love to have more children, but won’t under the threat of the ban.
“At this point, I’m scared to try and have another child,” she told the Herald-Leader in an interview Tuesday. “If I miscarry, I could bleed out before the doctors and the lawyers could decide whether or not they could treat me or if I needed to be prosecuted, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take for myself or my child or my husband.”
“For us, these Jewish traditions were so integral to our experience of becoming parents,” she said. “I think that it is so special that we live in a time where assisted reproductive technologies exist and are available to allow people like myself to become parents, but it’s really scary right now. Anything that I would need at this point is in question as to whether or not it’s legal or how legal it is. The state is mandating how many children I can have.”
Her co-plaintiffs have similar stories. Kalb also conceived her child through in vitro fertilization, and there was a very real possibility that an embryo she was carrying would not survive pregnancy or die shortly after birth. “Going through fertility treatment before this law came into effect, that was my biggest fear,” she said. “I was so afraid I was gonna get pregnant and go to a scan and hear, ‘Your baby’s not compatible with life.’ After this law, that’s no longer my greatest fear. Now, my greatest fear is that I become pregnant, and I go to a scan and they say, ‘Your baby’s incompatible with life, and we can’t help you.’” The third plaintiff, Baron, has two children and faces a risk of passing along a genetic anomaly to any future children, and she too says the state is preventing her from growing her family.
“In Judaism, reproductive health of a mother is between the mother, her rabbi and her doctor — not the attorney general,” Louisville attorney Aaron Kemper said in filing the case last Thursday. Another lawyer representing the mothers, Benjamin Potash, pointed out that the abortion bans are “using a very specific philosophical and religious understanding about what the moment of humanness is. “That is a very specific religious understanding from a very specific group of folks,” Potash said. “Simply put, it’s just not our belief, and we’re having that belief imposed upon us by the legislature.”
That is in violation of the Kentucky Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the suit claims, by violating “the religious freedoms of Jewish birth-givers.” It continues: “Forcing a mother to deliver a dead fetus to term, or one that will certainly die moments after birth, does not advance a governmental interest to protect fetal life, is contrary to Jewish law, severely damages the mental health of the mother, is flatly cruel and degrading, does nothing to promote ‘life’ and serves no legitimate purpose at all.”
That certainly turns the cudgel the right has made of “religious freedom” back on them, doesn’t it? It’s an important point, though, for Kentucky voters to consider heading into the last month of the campaign. That and the fundamental rights of half of its citizens.
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