Under G-D

[soft music] ♪ ♪ - The mezuzah should be- should be in this doorframe, but we have it over here.

We made that decision when we first moved here and were setting up our house.

There was swastikas on campus the summer we moved in, and there was a neo-Nazi at the farmer's market.

So we just weren't super comfortable publicizing that we were Jewish.

Up here is artwork that my husband, Arkady, did.

When you're pregnant, they often compare the size of the fetus to different fruit and vegetables.

And, so, as the fetus of Ava was growing, he painted her size.

We had hoped to do something similar for the second pregnancy, but it never took off.

[somber music] 39 weeks ago, essentially today, I became pregnant.

Arkady and I have a four-year-old, and we really wanted Ava to have a sibling, and she really wants a sibling.

At 17 weeks, the fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18, And trisomy 18 is a chromosomal abnormality that... Is largely incompatible with life.

♪ ♪ We made the decision to terminate.

And what sort of made us comfortable terminating a pregnancy is that I was raised to believe that life doesn't begin until... a fetus is born, and that is very much rooted in my Jewish identity and Jewish law.

The clock was ticking because the law in Indiana is you can have an abortion through 20 weeks.

We did the termination at 18 weeks.

Following the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the governor called the Indiana legislature to discuss an abortion ban bill- SB1, Senate Bill One.

We had senators on the floor of the Senate say, and this is a direct quote... - I enjoy being in the Indiana Senate, but I love Jesus.

- It's really unclear if my abortion would have been allowed if the bill had been in place.

♪ ♪ I have been really fired up about it.

- It's not easy being a rabbi and a lawyer, but it's a Jewish value to stand up against authority.

Jews have never hesitated to stand on the fringe of society when it's necessary to fight against oppression.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I started right then and there to gear up towards fighting for abortion rights.

HB5 is a law that was passed in Florida on July 1.

It prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

And it says that "anyone who actively participates "in an abortion, "which violates these rules, can be criminally prosecuted."

What does that mean- to actively participate in an abortion?

If a woman comes, says, "Rabbi, what should I do?"

And the rabbi says, "According to Jewish law, "you should have the abortion.

You need it to protect yourself."

And she gets the abortion.

He actively participated.

You're now preventing us from exercising our right to freedom of religion as Jews.

And so I decided to file a lawsuit against HB5 on novel grounds.

Specifically, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution says the government cannot establish religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.

And then you have Governor DeathSantis going as the head of state into a church to announce this law.

It's an arrogant defiance.

It's like saying, "You know what?

"Now we're going to push fundamentalist Christianity on everybody."

- The rabbi says Jewish law is clear on protecting the mother.

- This is a ghoulish attempt to force someone's religion on us.

- When I saw press about what Rabbi Silver was doing, I was thrilled.

Yes, this is exactly what must be done.

I am a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach constitutional law.

I lecture my students on the separation of church and state, and I explain that half of our states... almost half have some kind of RFRA.

RFRA stands for Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

What it does is it gives a very high level of protection to a believer in the state.

With RFRAs, we entered into this very dangerous era, in my view, in which people were being invited to use their religious faith to get around laws of all kinds, but one of the most interesting aspects of the post-Roe era is that there's a very clear overlap between states that are banning abortion that also enacted a RFRA.

Every RFRA requires the state to mold its law so it is the least restrictive for this believer.

Now the question is, can you use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in these states to defeat the abortion laws?

- We're going to now put them to the test, and the test is this.

Are you going to use RFRA only to protect fundamentalist Christians and their intolerance, or do Jews get to use it to?

[soft music] ♪ ♪ - Many people think, "Oh, religion in general is just anti-abortion."

But Jews have been embedded in this reproductive-health movement for over a century.

The first president of Planned Parenthood was a Jewish woman.

Many of the doctors and nurses who worked for Planned Parenthood were Jewish.

Jewish women were involved in Jane, which was one of the early abortion-access collectives that helped thousands of women get safe abortions in Chicago before they were legal.

And today 80% of Jews support legal access to abortion in all or most cases.

♪ ♪ - Judaism today does not have a central authority.

We haven't had a central authority in probably 1,500 years.

One of the characteristics of Jewish law, despite its reputation in some circles, is that it is a dynamic process.

Jewish law is changing and having to apply old rules and old principles and to figure out how they apply in contemporary circumstances.

On abortion, there are fundamentally two streams of thought.

The minority camp believes that life begins at 40 days after conception, so approximately 8 weeks, the way doctors count pregnancies, and the other predominant opinion is that life begins at birth.

No one pretty much believes that life begins at conception.

So Jewish law, the way most understand it, permits terminating the pregnancy.

And then it becomes a personal decision of the family, what they think is best for them and how they wish to proceed.

♪ ♪ - It's become really clear to me that we need to be calling our senators right now and reinforcing that we want access to abortion to remain in the state of Indiana.

Ava, do you know what this big building is?

- [babbles] What?

- That's called the courthouse.

All right, you ready?

- Yeah.

all: [chanting] My choice!

My body, my choice!

- She doesn't know anything of our personal history with this issue.

I think it is important for her to kind of see this in action and be a part of... [crowd cheering] Democracy and civic action.

all: [chanting] Safe and legal!

Safe and legal!

Safe and legal!

- Indiana already has a mediocre medical system and the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the country.

So, if the bill goes in place now... We won't try again to have a second child.

- As my colleague Dr. Ott just explained... ♪ ♪ [refrigerator door closes] [sniffles] - The abortion ban bill passed.

[sniffles] ♪ ♪ - You all right?

- [sniffles] - Just re-living everything?

♪ ♪ [clears throat] - [sniffles] - I mean, we knew it was coming, but it's still a shock.

♪ ♪ - Women and people with pregnancy capabilities are already dying from childbirth in Indiana.

It's just going to get worse.

We just have to keep moving and doing things and supporting people who need it because now the state isn't and the government isn't, and this is something that is happening across the country.

[dramatic music] - Bring me the case that I would bring under RFRA.

I've said that for 30 years.

And nobody ever had one that I would ever bring under RFRA until now.

Now I would do it.

Now we've got five lawsuits in Florida.

Florida is a major battleground on abortion, because all of a sudden, you have a state shutting down abortion where there were so many people needing access to abortion.

And you have them doing it based on a religious viewpoint.

In our lawsuits in Florida, we have seven members of the clergy.

We have five religions.

And we are claiming under a state RFRA that their faith is being substantially burdened by a state law and that they have to be accommodated.

So a law that started as really envisioned just for the right, really only used by the right in many ways for years is now the tool that we need against the theocratic abortion bans.

- It started out with just my congregation, but when I filed the lawsuit, I received many, many emails and phone calls to have other religions joining.

Friends throughout the interfaith community, like Maya Malay, a Buddhist leader, joined our lawsuit.

Hey, Maya - Hi, Rabbi.

How are you?

Good to see you.

- Thank you very much for joining this lawsuit.

- Yeah, it's important because theocratic rulings shouldn't be made, and it's the exclusion of others.

- I was really thrilled to see that there was tremendous support for this litigation and to maintain the separation of church and state and equality, not just for Jews but for everybody.

- As all of these clergy stand up and believers stand up and say, "That's not consistent with my faith," all of a sudden, everyone's on a high ground, and we start talking about what's best for the country and not just one set of minority religious beliefs.

♪ ♪ - I am the first female and the first Jewish president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in its 75-year history.

Americans United was actually founded by people of faith, who all came together because they cared so passionately about protecting religious freedom and they understood that church/state separation was the only guarantee for religious freedom.

The Dobbs abortion decision is an attack on church/state separation because the government is embracing one narrow set of religious views over everyone else.

This feels like an exceptional moment.

This feels like a moment that this organization was created for.

[indistinct chatter] ♪ ♪ - I'm a Presbyterian minister, and our denomination supports a woman's moral conscious, the ability to make choices that impact her life and her family's life.

It's a matter of my faith.

- As a Jew, as you know, we are so comforted to know that there's Christian clergy out there who believe profoundly in religious freedom as part of our country's promise but also as part of their own religious peace.

- Yes.

♪ ♪ - I am a Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants who was born in the Bay Area, California.

My very American story is under threat due to Christian nationalism.

Nearly 61% of Republicans now support declaring the United States a Christian nation.

In fact, the Supreme Court's recent ban on abortion violates the religious freedoms of Jews and Muslims, both communities that, by the way, allow for abortions.

Another word for this growing Christian nationalism movement is fascism.

Will we finally name it and confront it and white supremacy as the greatest threats to our national security today?

Answer wisely, because our country's democracy and freedoms depend on it.

Thank you.

[applause] - I loved what you had to say about how it's against the Muslim and Jewish faith to ban abortion.

Religious freedom belongs to all of us, not just some.

So we're gonna be bringing our own series of lawsuits challenging abortion bans under religious freedom.

- So the lawsuit, the strategy, but also the messengers is so important.

- Yeah.

I need more Muslim imams... - Yes, you do.

- To speak up about abortion rights as a religious freedom issue.

Do you know folks, imams, that are willing to- Can we talk?

- A couple.

You know, it's worth broaching the conversation.

- Let's talk.

- Yeah.

Hopefully that helps.

- The lawsuits that we're bringing are under state establishment clauses that say that the state cannot codify one religious viewpoint into the law.

If we win under a state establishment clause claim, the case can't be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It stops in the state courts.

And that's important right now because we've seen that we have a court that is aligning with religious extremists.

[soft music] But we have to remember that the reason that we're seeing such a backlash in this country is because we're on the winning side of history.

And just look at what the next generation of America looks like.

We are no longer majority white and Christian.

By 2046, we're going to be majority Black and brown.

We all need to celebrate that.

Diversity enables us to be a stronger democracy and a stronger country.

And the strategy is to create a momentum behind these, a momentum that will spread these lawsuits to other states.

- We're at a moment in history where we either act muscularly and directly, or we're going to be mowed over by a theocracy that knows no limits.

And, frankly, my own Presbyterian faith led me to conclude that that's just not a society we can live in.

♪ ♪ - I put together this group.

It's got almost 100 members.

We called it Hoosier Jews for Choice, and we are figuring out what we're going to do next.

- You'll hear from community organizations working daily to disrupt the purposeful and callous disregard that produces results like this legislation.

- I know that we are all very disheartened, hurt, and angry by this bill that's going into effect tomorrow, but we really cannot stop now.

- It is devastating to think of a world that we must live in as women without our human and equal rights.

Banning abortion nationwide will lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase amongst Black women.

- Laws like this only care about the fetus.

The mother-she's expendable, and that's why it's not Jewish, it's not rational, it's not humane, and it's not something that we should ever abide by in Florida or in the United States.

[cheers and applause] - Thank you so much.

We are going to speak on behalf of Hoosier Jews for Choice.

In the Jewish tradition, we conduct a ritual called Havdalah.

Havdalah is a ceremony that separates between the Holy Day of Shabbat and the every day.

It separates between rest and work, between lightness and darkness.

And, so, on this evening, we would like to mark this separation between having abortion rights and not having abortion rights with a modified Havdalah ritual.

♪ ♪ As we mark this separation and acknowledge our pain, we must also think about the responsibilities that we carry forward, our obligations to show up for those most impacted by this decision.

There is work to be done, and I know that all of us here will continue to do that work.

[cheers and applause]