Religious Rift Over Legal Abortion On Display Ahead Of Roe Ruling

LOADING ERROR LOADING America’s faithful are bracing — some with cautionary joy and others with looming dread — for the Supreme Court to potentially overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and end the nationwide right to legal abortion. America’s faithful are bracing, some with cautionary joy and others with looming dread, for the Supreme Court to potentially overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and end the nationwide right to legal abortion. “This ruling would be outlawing abortion in cases when our religion would permit us,” said Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, “and it is basing its concepts of when life begins on someone else’s philosophy or theology.” In Islam, similarly, there is room for “all aspects of reproductive choice from family planning to abortion,” said Nadiah Mohajir, co-founder of Heart Women and Girls, a Chicago nonprofit that works with Muslim communities on reproductive rights and other gender issues. “If we truly value life as a culture,” Nicolino said, “we would take steps like guaranteeing maternal health care, health care for children, decent housing for pregnant women.” Sikhism prohibits sex-selective killings — female infanticide — but is more nuanced when it comes to abortion and favors compassion and personal choice, said Harinder Singh, senior fellow of research and policy at Sikhri, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that creates educational resources about the faith. “It’s time to stand with women and families and look into how to respond to this horrible injustice.” Niklas Koehler, president of the Students for Life group at Franciscan University of Steubenville, a private Catholic college in eastern Ohio, said he and others regularly attend a special Mass on Saturday with prayers for an end to abortion.