Christian and Jewish abortion rights supporters are joining forces to use religious freedom as a basis for challenging abortion restrictions in several states.
Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization last year, which ended the federal right to an abortion, 15 lawsuits have been filed in eight states from people contending abortion bans infringe on their religious freedom, The New York Times reported June 28.
Cara Berg Raunick, who is Jewish, is part of a lawsuit filed in Indiana by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of Hoosiers Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths. The lawsuit contends that the state's abortion restrictions violate a religious freedom law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015, which prohibits any laws that "substantially burden" a person's ability to follow their religious beliefs.
To Berg Raunick, a pregnant woman's health and life is paramount, and she disagreed with legislators' assertions that life begins at conception, calling that a "Christian definition."
"That is a religious and values-based comment," Berg Raunick told The Associated Press. "A fetus is potential life, and that is worthy of great respect and is not to be taken lightly, but it does not supersede the life and health of the mother, period."
On Friday, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the state's abortion ban, with narrow exceptions. The ban had been on hold since September, when ACLU of Indiana and others challenged the case and won a lower court injunction.
Despite the Supreme Court's ruling, a preliminary injunction issued by a Marion County Superior Court judge to block the state's abortion ban in the religious freedom case will remain in effect. However, the Indiana Capitol Chronicle reported that injunction only applies to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
In January, a group of 13 clergy from six Jewish and Christian traditions filed a lawsuit challenging the state's abortion ban, contending the 2019 law that went into effect last year after the Dobbs decision violates the Missouri Constitution's prohibition against religious establishment. The clergy partnered with the National Women's Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State in drafting the suit.
On Friday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser dismissed some claims from the lawsuit, but declined to grant the state's motion to dismiss the lawsuit's main argument regarding religious freedom, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Sengheiser's ruling threw out the claims dealing with abortion regulations that are moot now that the total ban is in effect. However, he denied the state's motion to dismiss the portions of the suit dealing with the total ban and medication abortion restrictions.