The Torah tells its followers to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth," so that's what Lisa Sobel, a devout Jewish woman from Louisville, Kentucky, set out to do.
It wasn't easy. After more than three years of infertility, she and her husband embarked on a $50,000 IVF journey. Finally, after having to discard four embryos with genetic abnormalities, in April 2019, she delivered a healthy baby girl and quickly began hemorrhaging. Sobel almost died.
Now 39, Sobel wants another child. But after all that, what she says is keeping her from moving forward are the anti-abortion laws Kentucky enacted in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. It's why she and two other Jewish women both of whom also depend on in vitro fertilization to conceive-are suing the state on the grounds that its laws are vague and difficult to understand, and that they violate the Kentucky Religious Freedom Restoration Act's stipulation that "government shall not substantially burden a person's freedom of religion."
Their lawyers argue that Kentucky's abortion laws are so unclear that it would be reasonable to infer it is a crime to discard unneeded or genetically imperfect embryos, a common outcome in IVF. Sobel and her lawyers also argue the laws provide conflicting guidance on when abortion can be provided to a pregnant woman in medical distress. "If I were bleeding out from a miscarriage in the state of Kentucky," Sobel says, "I do not know that I would receive the life-saving care I would need." Her dying in this manner would violate traditional Jewish law, which holds the life of a mother has more value than that of a fetus.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May/June 2023-Ausgabe von Mother Jones.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May/June 2023-Ausgabe von Mother Jones.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
In the Name of the Mother - How Shyamala Gopalan Harris raised a presidential contender
Shyamala Gopalan Harris did not believe in coddling. Pay her daughters, Kamala and Maya, an allowance for doing chores? “If you do the dishes, you should get two dollars,” scoffed the woman who this past summer, almost two decades after we spoke, would launch a million coconut memes. “You ate from the damn dishes!” Reward the future vice president of the United States—and possible future president—for good grades? Ridiculous. “What does that tell you?” her mother chided. “It says, ‘You know, I really thought you were stupid. Oh, you surprised Mommy!’ No.”
Kill the Messenger - The anti-disinformation field is retreating under attack.
A few months ago, a man crawling along a rooftop in Pennsylvania tried to murder Donald Trump at a campaign rally. Hours later, press releases started to circulate, from analysts, think tanks, politicians, and pundits, all offering to cut through the swell of confusion and misinformation.
Food + Health / Global Warning - Why Project 2025 is an environmental catastrophe in the making
When President Joe Biden took office, Democrats held a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a single-vote edge in the Senate. Despite the monumental odds, he has presided over the most productive presidential term for climate action in American history. Under Biden’s direction, the federal government took up the arduous task of incorporating climate considerations into scores of administrative operations and procedures. The epa cracked down on superpollutants and issued stricter emissions regulations for passenger vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending bill Congress has ever passed, brings the nation closer to its goal of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2030.
Trumpnesia - To get a second chance, Trump needs voters to forget his disastrous presidency.
One of the most oft-quoted sentences ever penned by a philosopher is George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 2024, this aphorism is practically a campaign slogan. Donald Trump, seeking to become the first former president since Grover Cleveland to return to the White House after being voted out of the job, has waged war on remembrance. In fact, he’s depending on tens of millions of voters forgetting the recent past. This election is an experiment in how powerful a memory hole can be.
WHEN IN DROUGHT
This obscure yet adaptable grain could be a healthy staple for a warming planet.
BAD HABITS
A spate of recent horror movies recycle tired tropes about nuns-and reveal society's ongoing discomfort with independent women.
Taking the Fifth For a glimpse of the Supreme Court after a second Trump term, look at the radical circuit court that's already driving America to the right.
Imagine obamacare is dead and millions of Americans have lost health coverage.
THE ARCHITECT
TRUMP WANTS TO BE KING. RUSS VOUGHT HAS A PLAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Losing Faith
As an evangelical leader, I enticed lawmakers and federal judges to adopt a conservative Christian agenda. Donald Trump’s rise proved how wrong I was.
GOD'S COUNTRY
These Christian nationalists have a plan to take over Americafrom small towns to the highest court in the land.
