When the Rev. Laurie Hafner ministers to her Florida congregants about abortion, she looks to the founding values of the United Church of Christ, her lifelong denomination: religious freedom and freedom of thought. She taps into her reading of Genesis, which says “man became a living being” when God breathed “the breath of life” into Adam. She thinks of Jesus promising believers full and abundant life.
“I am pro-choice not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith,” Hafner says.
She is among seven Florida clergy members — two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist — who argue in separate lawsuits filed Monday that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the state’s new, post-Roe abortion law. The law, which is one of the strictest in the country, making no exceptions for rape or incest, was signed in April by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in a Pentecostal church alongside antiabortion lawmakers such as the House speaker, who called life “a gift from God.”
The lawsuits are at the vanguard of a novel legal strategy arguing that new post-Roe abortion restrictions violate Americans’ religious freedom, including that of clerics who advise pregnant people. The cases are part of an effort among a broad swath of religious Americans who support abortion access to rewrite the dominant modern cultural narrative that says the only “religious” view on abortion is to oppose it.
“I think the religious right has had the resources and the voices politically and socially to be so loud, and frankly, they don’t represent the Christian faith,” Hafner told The Washington Post. “Those of us on the other side, with maybe a more inclusive voice, need to be strong and more faithful and say: ‘There is another very important voice.’
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“Look biblically; Jesus says nothing about abortion. He talks about loving your neighbor and living abundantly and fully. He says: ‘I come that you might have full life.’ Does that mean for a 10-year-old to bear the child of her molester? That you cut your life short because you aren’t able to rid your body of a fetus?”
Antiabortion advocate worked for years to overturn Roe, but worries over next steps
The five lawsuits seek to invalidate the Florida law, which went info effect July 1 and bans abortions after 15 weeks, except in cases when the mother could face serious injury or death or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It also makes it a felony to “participate” in an abortion, which the suit charges could include counseling someone to have one.
“Since time immemorial, the questions of when a potential fetus or fetus becomes a life and how to value maternal life during pregnancy have been answered according to religious beliefs and creeds,” say the suits, which use identical language except when describing each plaintiff’s faith.
The new law, the suits read, sets “a pernicious elevation of the legal rights of fetuses while at the same time it devalues the quality of life and the health of the woman or girl who is pregnant. It is in direct conflict with Plaintiff’s clerical obligations and faith and imposes severe barriers and substantial burdens to their religious belief, speech and conduct.”
The cases are unusual in that they frame major liberal values through the lens of religious-liberty law. For years, religious conservatives have successfully argued in high-profile Supreme Court cases that their beliefs should allow them to open churches during a global pandemic, discriminate against LGBTQ people and decline to give employees contraception, among other cases.
A lawsuit similar to the clergy members’ was filed in June by a Florida rabbi, who argued the abortion law violates his practice of Judaism. Jewish views on abortion are complex across the ideological spectrum, but law and tradition do not ban it, sometimes appear to require it and do not recognize an unborn fetus as a full legal person. According to that lawsuit, filed last month in Leon County Circuit Court, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach argues that the new law “prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and … violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.”
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Abortion patients and health-care providers who support abortion access have made similar arguments in Indiana, where they are challenging that state’s requirement that fetal tissue from abortions and miscarriages be buried or cremated. That suit, which was filed in 2020, said a group of 2016 laws, signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence (R), compel women “to act in accordance with the State’s view of personhood irrespective of their own beliefs about the status of developing human life” and violate freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, and the requirement for equal protection under the law.
At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has ruled more than 81 percent of the time in favor of “religion,” compared with about 50 percent for all previous eras since 1953, according to a study published in April. Still, given the court’s conservative view on abortion, some religious-liberty experts are skeptical that the court will support faith-based arguments for reproductive access.
“I am pro-choice not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith,” Hafner says.
She is among seven Florida clergy members — two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist — who argue in separate lawsuits filed Monday that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the state’s new, post-Roe abortion law. The law, which is one of the strictest in the country, making no exceptions for rape or incest, was signed in April by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in a Pentecostal church alongside antiabortion lawmakers such as the House speaker, who called life “a gift from God.”
The lawsuits are at the vanguard of a novel legal strategy arguing that new post-Roe abortion restrictions violate Americans’ religious freedom, including that of clerics who advise pregnant people. The cases are part of an effort among a broad swath of religious Americans who support abortion access to rewrite the dominant modern cultural narrative that says the only “religious” view on abortion is to oppose it.
“I think the religious right has had the resources and the voices politically and socially to be so loud, and frankly, they don’t represent the Christian faith,” Hafner told The Washington Post. “Those of us on the other side, with maybe a more inclusive voice, need to be strong and more faithful and say: ‘There is another very important voice.’
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“Look biblically; Jesus says nothing about abortion. He talks about loving your neighbor and living abundantly and fully. He says: ‘I come that you might have full life.’ Does that mean for a 10-year-old to bear the child of her molester? That you cut your life short because you aren’t able to rid your body of a fetus?”
Antiabortion advocate worked for years to overturn Roe, but worries over next steps
The five lawsuits seek to invalidate the Florida law, which went info effect July 1 and bans abortions after 15 weeks, except in cases when the mother could face serious injury or death or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It also makes it a felony to “participate” in an abortion, which the suit charges could include counseling someone to have one.
“Since time immemorial, the questions of when a potential fetus or fetus becomes a life and how to value maternal life during pregnancy have been answered according to religious beliefs and creeds,” say the suits, which use identical language except when describing each plaintiff’s faith.
The new law, the suits read, sets “a pernicious elevation of the legal rights of fetuses while at the same time it devalues the quality of life and the health of the woman or girl who is pregnant. It is in direct conflict with Plaintiff’s clerical obligations and faith and imposes severe barriers and substantial burdens to their religious belief, speech and conduct.”
The cases are unusual in that they frame major liberal values through the lens of religious-liberty law. For years, religious conservatives have successfully argued in high-profile Supreme Court cases that their beliefs should allow them to open churches during a global pandemic, discriminate against LGBTQ people and decline to give employees contraception, among other cases.
A lawsuit similar to the clergy members’ was filed in June by a Florida rabbi, who argued the abortion law violates his practice of Judaism. Jewish views on abortion are complex across the ideological spectrum, but law and tradition do not ban it, sometimes appear to require it and do not recognize an unborn fetus as a full legal person. According to that lawsuit, filed last month in Leon County Circuit Court, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach argues that the new law “prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and … violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.”
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
Abortion patients and health-care providers who support abortion access have made similar arguments in Indiana, where they are challenging that state’s requirement that fetal tissue from abortions and miscarriages be buried or cremated. That suit, which was filed in 2020, said a group of 2016 laws, signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence (R), compel women “to act in accordance with the State’s view of personhood irrespective of their own beliefs about the status of developing human life” and violate freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, and the requirement for equal protection under the law.
At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has ruled more than 81 percent of the time in favor of “religion,” compared with about 50 percent for all previous eras since 1953, according to a study published in April. Still, given the court’s conservative view on abortion, some religious-liberty experts are skeptical that the court will support faith-based arguments for reproductive access.