Shhh! Don’t Tell Evangelical Supporters of Israel, but Abortion There Is Legal — and Often It’s Free
Category: News & Politics
Via: hallux • 3 years ago • 55 commentsBy: Allison Kaplan Sommer - Haaretz
For Israelis, the affinity of President Donald Trump’s evangelical supporters for the Jewish state has been a bonanza. From the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Golan Heights as being under Israeli sovereignty and refraining from condemnation of any Israeli military action, the White House has been the gift that keeps on giving. And credit for that is widely acknowledged to be his desire to please his staunchly pro-Israel Christian base.
However, while Israel and the Christian right may be in harmony on U.S. foreign policy, Israeli attitudes and the country’s laws radically diverge from evangelical beliefs on the issue that matters most to hard-line conservative Republicans: abortion.
Extremely restrictive new state laws have ignited a new firestorm of controversy over abortion in the United States . But in Israel — a country where almost everything is arguable, and argued about — abortion laws remain surprisingly, consistently liberal and uncontroversial.
Israeli abortion law has something for everyone: A semblance of regulation for conservatives, but a reality in which almost any woman who wants an abortion is able to have one — and an estimated 40,000 Israeli women annually have them.
For an Israeli woman who wishes to end a pregnancy, the process is not only legal but is usually heavily subsidized or free, covered under Israel’s national health care system.
The existing abortion law was passed in 1977. Under the law, the procedure is fully legal under any of the following conditions:
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* The pregnant woman in question is under 18 or over 40
* The woman is not married
* The fetus has a serious mental or physical defect
* The pregnancy is the result of rape, incest or adultery
* If carrying the pregnancy to term “is liable to endanger the woman’s life or cause her physical or emotional damage”
A separate committee exists for late-term abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
For teenagers and soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces , abortions are fully funded by the state. And in a revision of the national health coverage law in 2014, abortions became free to all women between 20 and 33 regardless of their circumstances, in order to help young women who cannot afford to pay even a heavily subsidized fee for the procedure.
In practice, this means that legal abortion is easy to obtain at no cost except for those who are married and are of standard childbearing age — between 18 and 40.
But even though abortion is legal and often free, this does not mean the state gives all Israeli women the right to choose.
Any healthy married woman between 18-40 who wants a free or heavily subsidized abortion in a public facility must face a pregnancy termination committee — composed of social workers and doctors — giving them justifications for the decision in order to have the abortion approved.
Often, women resort to white lies in order to meet the official criteria, saying they are mentally unstable or that the husband is not the father of the child, even when it is not the case.
A study by the Central Bureau of Statistics examining all abortions in Israel in 2016 found that 9 percent of pregnancies in Israel are legally terminated. That year, 18,032 women applied for approval to abortion committees to end their pregnancies; of those, 92.3 percent were approved. Nearly half of these women told the committee they had been impregnated by a man they were not married to.
Longer-term studies have found that the approval rate is even higher than 92 percent, with more than 96 percent of women’s applications approved.
The 2016 study did not account for the women who opt for private abortions, thus avoiding the committee process. If a woman has several hundred dollars, obtaining a private abortion in a doctor’s clinic rather than a public hospital is the more efficient route. Though technically such physicians are breaking the law, the practice is common and widespread, allowing any woman — regardless of her marital status, age or personal situation — to obtain an abortion discreetly and far more quickly than the official process. No doctor has ever been prosecuted for doing so.
The strongest evidence that the Israeli public, and its political and religious leadership, is essentially content with the current arrangement is the fact that any attempts to challenge or change it have met with widespread opposition.
Such attempts to rock the boat have been few and far between: The last time a serious attempt was made to change the status quo was in 2006, when a bill introduced by then-Meretz MK Zehava Galon — which would have eliminated the abortion termination committees — was soundly defeated by an overwhelming majority.
Then-Health Minister Jacob Edery said the government, led at the time by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, opposed the bill because it did not believe “now is the time to reopen this complicated and problematic discussion. We must remember that the termination of pregnancy is a complicated and sensitive social issue, and every change is a change in the status quo between different worldviews.”
In 2013, when Israel’s two chief rabbis issued a letter in support of an antiabortion organization called Efrat, saying they wanted to make “the wider public aware of the extreme seriousness involved in killing fetuses, which is like actual murder,” the backlash was fierce — not only from feminists and the left, but from some of their fellow Orthodox rabbis. One leading rabbi, Benny Lau, sharply criticized the declaration .
"The statement ‘Abortion is murder’ is not legitimate. I understand the motivation to fight against extreme liberalism, but a lack of balance is very dangerous to the social structure,” he said. “A religious society is obligated to take things in a balanced way. The Efrat association does not have this balance; there is no balance. Taking our Torah in the direction of Christian Catholic canon law is a terrible mistake.”
For the entire past decade of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s domination of government, abortion laws have remained untouched. In 2017, a proposal was floated that would change the status quo and invite religious input into abortion committee decisions. The reaction was fierce: Female legislators denounced it in the Knesset, women took to social media calling for rabbis to be “kept out of our uterus!” and the proposal died a swift death.
To be sure, neither religious conservatives nor liberal feminists are completely satisfied with the status quo. Jewish and Muslim clerics don’t want abortion banned outright — neither religion forbids it — but they surely wish the committees weren’t so liberal in permitting abortions or that they weren’t so commonly obtained.
And women’s advocates who believe in autonomy over their own bodies would clearly prefer it if the abortion panels didn’t exist at all. Feminists regularly decry them: Back in 2017 Galon called them a “black, shameful stain on Israeli society.”
Dr. Adi Niv-Yagoda, an attorney specializing in medical law and health policy, told Haaretz last year that the existing law requiring women to face abortion committees “provides for a draconian and unreasonable arrangement that creates the need to lie in order for a woman to have the right to autonomy over her own body.
In a 2015 New York Times opinion piece , Mairav Zonszein described her feelings as she anticipated appearing before such a committee.
“As I waited to register, it began to sink in,” she wrote. “I had no control, no privacy and no anonymity over this intimate, difficult matter pertaining strictly to my own body. The idea that anyone but me had the power to decide my family’s fate and mine was harrowing. Israel’s abortion policy, it hit me, was the opposite of liberal.”
Because Zonszein and her partner were not married, her request, as woman who was technically single, was easily granted.
“There were no medical questions or examinations, no offers of information or assistance. It was cold, efficient bureaucracy. A nurse administered the abortion medically the next day.”
The next time you fund the Israeli gov. or an Israeli charity, you are helping Israel to pay for free abortions.
Following the logic in that statement, does that mean when PP here receives federal tax dollars, we are funding abortions?
9 Things People Get Wrong About Planned Parenthood
Nice link.
Now, about my actual question...............any answer?
Only 9 things?
In a similar way ... indirectly.
[deleted]
I will say it is refreshing to see someone on the left actually admit that tax dollars ARE being used to fund abortions, even if it is indirectly. Many people won't admit it.
It's amazing that some countries are more socially advanced in such matters like abortion rights than the US. And instead of trying to advance ourselves, some here want to actually go backwards to greater social repression of rights.
Yes and over seventy five percent of American Jews voted Democratic in the 2020 Presidential election...
OOOPPPSSS
And may I point out that this is consistent with how Rabbis read the OT, so all that stuff about it being against god, is apparently how you decide to read those texts.
There is not a religion in this world that does not have cults whose 'ordained' leaders do all the 'proper' translations for their members to ascribe to.
It appears that Israel is taking a logical approach to abortion versus the emotional approach of the anti-choicers in the US.
There is no logical reason that anyone, besides the woman and her doctor, should be involved in the woman's medical decision.
That's what I say too, and I have yet to see a logical argument put forth as to why anyone should be involved in that decision making or why abortions should be limited or prohibited.
I agree, and that means that taxpayer money shouldn't be used.
It should be paid for just like any other medical procedure performed for the well-being of the patient.
We don't restrict medical procedures for men that paid for with taxpayer money.
There is no reason that women should not be treated in the same way.
Which procedures are you talking about?
Any that are deemed necessary by doctor and patient.
Is there any evidence of taxpayer dollars paying for a medical procedure for a man that a woman is denied?
When a man needs a hysterectomy let me know.
I know you realize that isn't an answer to what I asked.
I am not against abortion at all, although personally I find it a rather crude method of birth control considering ALL the options available today.
I believe a woman should have any and all abortions she chooses to have and that she can afford.
Via PP:
men can visit clinics for prostate, colon, and testicular cancer screenings, vasectomies, male infertility screenings, and sexual-health services, among other necessary health treatments. In 2014, Planned Parenthoods nationwide provided vasectomies to 3,445 men.
If she can't afford an abortion, then she can't afford a child. The taxpayer will be footing a $10,000 to $30,000 hospital bill when the child is born.
So who is going to feed, clothe, and shelter the child for the next 18+ years? The taxpayer? At what cost?
Paying for abortions instead of $100,000+ a poverty ridden child would save the taxpayers enormous amounts of money that could be used to promote the health and safety of our society at large.
Fantastic.
But like the other answer I received, it doesn't answer what was asked.
All things a woman and a man should consider before engaging in sexual relations.
But then again, we sometimes aren't dealing with mental giants when they can't figure out how to prevent pregnancy today.
I am just not of the mindset that we as taxpayers should provide everything to everyone because they want it.
Man or woman.
Isn't it rather amazing we have survived as a country for this long without providing free abortions on demand?
And BTW, taxpayers DO "pay" for others' children through the tax codes. Parents get tax breaks while childless people don't.
The answer is that women have different medical needs than men. This was pointed out by Hallux that men have procedures that women do not require.
If you need further information on the different medical needs of women and men, then maybe you should go to your trusted medical advisors.
So women are NOT denied any service that men get provided for free.
The majority of Americans do not wish their tax dollars pay for abortions.
Which is why we have had the Hyde Amendment for so long.
Fortunately, for us women, we are not currently under your mindset in 2021.
Women, in the US, are effectively using birth control to the point that population growth has slowed to less than replacement rate.
The religious zealots are putting out propaganda that the human race will go extinct because women (who have a choice) are intelligent enough to not have children they don't want and/or can't afford. Throughout history, the religious zealots are some of the most controlling and destructive barbarians that women have ever had to fight in order to have control of our own lives.
One must learn that because you have a right doesn't mean I must pay for you to exercise it.
Do the majority of Americans wish for their money to pay for fossil fuel subsidies?
This is an industry that is responsible for literally killing our planet, but manages to stay out of the headlines most of the time. Why?
The abortion issue is an easy way to keep taxpayer's attention diverted from how our government wastes trillions of taxpayer dollars a years supporting the rich at the expense of the working class.
And when election year comes around, the politicians can talk about emotional issues instead of economic ones.
Now you are on an entirely different subject.
The Hyde Amendment was a good compromise.
Which is why it has lasted so long, and why it most likely will be included in the new spending bills.
Centrist Democrats will see to that.
Subsidies? Really?
How many taxpayers have a clue who they are subsidizing and how much it is costing them?
How will they ever find out if those subsidies are not in the news and discussed?
Why aren't those subsidies in the news?
MSN has articles along partisan lines, but no details on where $3.7 trillion is needed or where it would be actually spent?
How could anyone actually oversee a $3.7 trillion budget?
It is a Hell of a lot easier to argue over the control zealots' emotional issues than answer questions over financial ones.
If you have some problem with control zealots, why not take it up with them?
And yes we subsidize many things, but some of us are opposed to many of them. Heck we also subsidize wind and solar power, along with electric cars.
paying for abortions will save many more of your and my tax dollars than it costs, abortion is a cost effective use of tax funds.
This is true.
I live in the Bible Belt. I have dealt with control zealots using religion as a tool ever since I was a toddler. I didn't put up with their misogynist crap when I was a Christian, I damn well won't tolerate it in my life now. As I mentioned earlier, our government has spent trillions of dollars fighting religious control zealots in the Middle East. It is past time that we got the American version of the Taliban out of the US government.
Most of the people I have ever loved (or liked) belonged to some sect of the Christian religion. They worked on improving themselves instead of controlling or attempting to control the lives of other people.
Yes, I know that. My problem is with paying for what people should be paying for themselves. Just because they wanted to have sex and got pregnant doesn't constitute an emergency on my part.
I just hate this idea that some people think they are entitled to have things they want paid for just because they want them.
but it is cheaper in the long run and overpopulation is a big problem
Maybe so, Texan1211, but I'm having a hard time trying to stop laughing.
Cheaper in the long run and breaks cycle of generational poverty
But some say tax money must be spent to provide ID to voters who do not have ID
Yes, SCOTUS ruled that states requiring voter ID must provide them free to those who can't afford them.
In this day and age, just about everyone has ID already, and I don't think it too burdensome to get one for free.
Hey, I wonder if they'll give you a free ID to buy a gun?
Oh just stop it.
Regardless of whether the Hyde Amendment is in force you will still assert, as you have for years, that the PPP
will still be benefitting from Title X $$ should the PPP elect to receive Title X dollars for education and all of the other
services they provide to men & women.
This is in spite of the fact that PPP charges women, or their insurance companies between 800 to 2,100 dollars per
surgical abortion procedure with co-pays like any other medical office.
In my opinion, no one should have any knowledge of anyone's medical procedures be it a wisdom tooth removal,
a penile implant ( certainly not a medical emergency IMHO ) or prescriptions for Viagra like compounds
or a D&C or a chemical abortion.
BS, that's your opinion.
We have no more say about how the Fed spends our dollars than the Feds allow us to know.
PP has regularly received in excess of $500 million dollars for predominantly women's healthcare
( one could say to save lives and the maintain the quality of women's lives )
while the Fed spends in excess of $700 Billion in Defense and sells $51 Billion in military arms to other countries.
( designed to take lives, or in their opinions to save the buyer's own lives )
Religious beliefs are supposed to be separate from government decisions
and religious people choose to keep their unexpected pregnancies' and the consequences every day
which is their right to do.
I hope people will realize that having a right, such as abortion, doesn't mean that others must pay for you to exercise that right.
We don't supply guns to people who want them, and I dare say that the idea that we should is preposterous and would be met with much deserved ridicule.
What I find interesting about the abortion debate in the US is how Pro Choicers try to frame abortion law in the US to be more restrictive than the rest of the world when generally speaking nothing could be further from the truth.
In actuality, US gestation limits tend to be more liberal than much of the developed world.
The topic of this article was Israel. Do you consider Israel to be undeveloped - a third world country?
Not sure how you would arrive at that question from that link. It includes many countries, developed or otherwise.
Regardless of where, abortions still happen.
The only way to stop most abortions is to stop the incidence of unwanted pregnancy.
Sex education and easier access to family planning and birth control accomplishes it.
Making laws against abortions doesn't do it.
Which has precisely nothing to do with the comment I made or the link I included.
Sorry, but I'm unable to open your link - the source is blocked here. I can only read Washington Post articles if they're included in the MSN News compilation, where I can access many sources that are blocked here. I go through the MSN compilations for both US and World news every day, besides Bing news, USA Today news, and Canada Television News web sites, without a VPN, so nobody in China is blocked from all those sites and many more western ones such as NPR, The Hill, and even Fox News all of which can be accessed directly. Now, how many other members of NT check out BOTH sides of the stories like I do before they proffer opinions? I guess I'm ranting....LOL.
The only thing evangelical Christians care about in Israel are the locations where the biblical Armageddon will occur. Does anyone think they actually care about the Jews?
They probably care as much for the Jews as the Catholic Church "cares" for children.
Not even saying how dumb I find that comment.
Everyone knows you're just gigging JohnRussell.
Not even going to say how little I care what you personally find.
It is called a comparison.