In a must-read piece in this morning’s Religion Dispatches, Gordon D. Newby makes a clear–and overdue–case why the Stupak amendment undermines not only women’s reproductive and sexual rights, but also abrogates the rights of all of us to freedom of religion.

"The debate about abortion, particularly as connected
to healthcare reform, has been characterized as a “conservative” versus
“liberal” debate," writes Newby.

What is missed in that characterization is the fact
that the foundational theologies among Jews, Muslims, and even many
otherwise “conservative” Christians are more nuanced and complicated
than the simplistic and absolutist stands taken by the “C Street”
Democrats and their supporters.

Because it takes rests on only one religious view, "The recently passed House Healthcare Bill might be paving the way to
enact religious discrimination into law; on the important and
fundamental issues of life and health, many religious Americans will be
unable to live and act according to their own religious consciences and
beliefs," contends Newby.

By largely removing the possibility of abortion from the
American healthcare system, even in cases where the health and life of
the mother is at risk, the Stupak amendment "goes beyond current law and practice and
inserts the theological views of a vocal religious minority as a
roadblock to the religious beliefs and practices of many Americans," he argues.

In Jewish tradition, for example, fertility and childbirth are celebrated, but abortion is neither forbidden nor regarded as
murder in the Rabbinic Jewish system.

In Judaism, the fetus does not
have the status of “person” with a separate juridical “personhood”
until its head emerges from the womb. In the Mishnah,
the foundational work of Rabbinic law, we are told: “If a woman suffers
difficult labor in childbirth, the fetus must be cut up in her womb and
brought out piece by piece, for her life takes precedence over its
life. If [however] its greater part has [already] come out, it must not
be touched, for the [claims of one] life can not supersede [that of
another] life.” (Oholoth 7:6) On the basis of this, Rabbis
have consistently argued that the health of the mother must take
precedence over the fetus. This position was clearly expounded by one
of the most famous rabbis, Moses Maimonides.

As additional evidence that the fetus is not a person, it cannot
receive gifts, and if aborted or lost by miscarriage, it cannot receive
a Jewish name or receive a Jewish funeral. Rabbinic discussions of when
the soul enters the fetus are not part of the conversations about
abortion in Judaism. The Rabbis were interested in ensoulment,
the moment that the soul and the body were joined, but there was no
agreement about the issue. And, the soul in Judaism is pure soul and
immortal whether joined to the body or not and is not entangled in
anything like the Christian notion of “Original Sin.” Most Rabbis agree
that trivial or material reasons for abortion are to be condemned, but
that abortion for the life and health of the mother is both permissible
and mandated. Anything that limits this mandate restricts the Jewish
mother from acting in a fully Jewish way.

Newby discusses the nuances of views on abortion in Islam, among the world’s Buddhists, and in Hinduism. Protestant Christians vary widely in their views on abortion and
often hold views that are not reflected in the pronouncements of their
church’s hierarchy, thus following the principle of the primacy of
individual conscience.

You can, and should(!) read the entire piece here.

Finally, Newby underscores what is often lost in this debate even in regard to Catholicism: Things have changed.

It should be remembered that on this issue there is no
unanimity among Christians either now or in the historical past. St.
Augustine held that ensoulment occurred sometime after the beginning of
the growth of the fetus and that abortion was not homicide. He, like
other theologians of his time, was more concerned with whether abortion
was being used to cover up the greater sin of fornication or adultery.
In the late sixteenth century, Pope Sixtus V held that both
contraception and abortion were homicide and punishable by
excommunication, but his immediate successor, Pope Gregory XIV, held
that this view was in conflict with Church practice and the theological
views of ensoulment. Only in modern times has the Roman Catholic Church
generally condemned all forms of abortion, even therapeutic abortions
meant to save the life of the mother.

If the House healthcare bill is allowed to stand and becomes the
basis for new legislation, writes Newby, "religious Americans across the spectrum of
faiths will be subjected to limitations that will contravene their
faith’s most well-considered and cherished views about the major
questions of life, reproduction, and freedom of religious conscience,
which freedoms were imagined by our nation’s founders as central to the
nature of our country."