Dr. Rachel Kranson (Director, Jewish Studies program)

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, the legal teams representing American Jewish organizations developed arguments that defended abortion access as a matter of religious freedom. Relying on the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment, they contended that restrictions on abortion violated the rights of American Jews and other religious Americans whose traditions allowed for, or might even require, the termination of a pregnancy in certain circumstances. This work-in-progress considers the impact of these arguments on the history of reproductive politics, and on the political investments of American Jews.

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