Stricken from the Text: Sacred Stories of Reproductive Justice

The passage contrasts two scenarios in which two men are fighting and accidentally strike a nearby pregnant woman. The permutations differ only in who or what is harmed. In the first, only the fetus is lost, and the punishment is a monetary fine, paid to the woman's husband. In the second, the woman herself is harmed or killed. There, the punishment is retributive: an eye for an eye and a nefesh- literally, "soul," but in this case meaning a human life possessing personhood-for a nefesh. From this, we may derive the principle that a woman has the full status of a person, nefesh, while the fetus–though value–has a lesser status.

The Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that abortion is protected under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which guarantees a right to privacy, including a right to private medical procedures. For American Jews, the protection of access to abortion could also be understood under the First Amendment's free exercise of religion clause. Because Jewish law permits abortion under certain circumstances as a morally acceptable choice, or even in some cases a halachic requirement, any law that limits a woman's right to choose might limit a Jewish woman's ability to make a decision in accordance with her religious beliefs.

Every family has stories of reproductive choices. Some are shared between mothers and daughters, between parents and children. Others are kept secret or lost. Our work of justice is rooted in the telling of these stories. For every woman caught in a fight between two men, there was one miscarrying at home and one in a strange land, one in a happy marriage and one whose relationship was violent, one alone and one surrounded by her family, one desperately wanting to save the fetus and one desperately wanting it gone. Every pregnancy has its own story with its own ending. Each time we listen with compassion and curiosity to a new narrative, we strengthen our ability to discuss pregnancy and its termination without judgment, guided by the voices of those who have actually experienced it. Sharing these stories has the power to lift up marginalized voices and create public empathy and awareness.