Suit was filed last week in a Florida state trial court by a Palm Beach County synagogue challenging Florida's recently enacted 15-week abortion ban. The complaint (full text) in Generation to Generation, Inc. v. Florida, (FL Cir. Ct., filed 6/10/2022) contends that the law violates the free exercise, establishment, right to privacy, due process and equal protection provisions of the Florida Constitution. The complaint alleges in part:
40. Some women, such as the members, congregants, supporters of Plaintiff L’Dor Va-Dor and their families have an abortion because it is required by their religious faith. For Jews, all life is precious and thus the decision to bring new life into the world is not taken lightly or determined by state fiat. In Jewish law, abortion is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman, or for many other reasons not permitted under the Act. As such, the Act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and thus violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.....
71. The Jewish people have often borne the brunt of the horrors that occur when the power of Christianity has merged with the power of the state. The result has been Inquisitions, Crusades, ghettoes and pogroms for the Jews and the eventual loss of freedom for everyone else....
72. The architects of the Act have taken a first step towards the dismantling of that wall and returning the state of Florida and our nation back to a time when the merger of Christianity and government produced genocide, slavery, misogyny, and the denial of equal rights and in many cases, any rights at all to those who did not share the gender, race or religion of those in power.
Jews for a Secular Democracy issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
