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April 30, 2004/Iyar 9 5764, Vol. 56, No. 32
Women rally for choice
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Barbara Goldman came halfway across the country to demonstrate for reproductive rights - and she says it was worth it.
"You have to stand up and be counted," said Goldman, who came to Washington for the March for Women's Rights from Chicago. She spoke at a Havdalah service that the Women of Reform Judaism held on the eve of the April 25 abortion-rights rally.
Thousands of Jewish women joined hundreds of thousands of American rallying for abortion rights at the National Mall.
"As Jews, we know what it means to have fundamental rights and liberties stripped away," Marsha Atkind, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, told the overflow crowd. "And today, one of our most basic rights, our right to repro-ductive freedom, is under attack in courtrooms and legislatures across the country."
Much has been made of Jewish support for the Bush administration's stance on Israel, the fight against terrorism and, in many cases, the war in Iraq. But for many American Jews, those positions do not counter-balance what they see as the administration's chipping away at civil liberties.
The political message from those Jews was clear at the rally.
"We've seen an erosion of civil rights and human rights in this country by an administration that is secretive and is afraid to hear dissent," said Sharlene Dane, who flew to Washington from Los Angeles for the rally. Hadassah and the National Council of Jewish Women bused in delegations from the Northeast and Midwest. The Conservative and Re-constructionist movements were represented as well.
Many of the groups assembled spoke out against last year's passage of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which outlawed a specific abortion procedure tech-nically known as intact dilation and evacuation, which generally is carried out late in a pregnancy.
Some Jewish groups also criticized Bush's signing of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act earlier this month. That legislation made attacks against pregnant women that harm embryos a separate crime. They said granting a fetus legal status contradicted the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding legal abortions.
Orthodox Jews generally differ from the other streams when it comes to abortion, and Orthodox Jewish re-presentatives in Washington have expressed support for both acts.
But polls have shown that more Jews support abortion rights and Roe v. Wade than any other religious or ethnic community in the United States, according to the Union for Reform Judaism.
"It's important for people to know that people who have a firm foundation in religion and ethics value choice," said Sandi Costello, a Hadassah member from Albany, N.Y.
That contingent seemed very skeptical of Bush's overtures to Jews. "The president is making decisions that are overtly political, motivated to go for the Jewish vote," said Jane Marcus, who came from Los Altos Hills, Calif.
"We cannot be one-issue people," said June Walker Hadassah's national president. "We must be part of the society we live in."
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