✡︎ Shalom & Good Shabbos! ✡︎
In a thoughtful essay in the First Things March 2022 issue, Hadley Arkes explores two views of the abortion question: focusing on the innocent child in the womb versus focusing on the criminal laws of homicide. He explains the public policy differences that result from each approach.
ON OVERRULING ROE
Hadley Arkes was instrumental in formulating the original Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act that passed in 2002. That legislation lacked penalties for murdering vulnerable infants. The current version of the bill that does impose criminal and civil penalties remains in limbo due to opposition by pro-abortion legislators in Congress.
A Day in the Senate with the Born-Alive Act
Hadley Arkus is the Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions emeritus at Amherst College, and founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding in Washington, D.C. He was born and raised Jewish. In 2010, he converted to Catholicism primarily because of the abortion issue, as he states in this April 2010 article. He calls himself a Jewish Catholic. We might call him a pro-life Jew without moral support.......
Finalmente: Coming Into the Church
Alice Lemos, a board member of the JPLF, often laments about Jews who convert to Catholicism because of the life issue. She mentioned Hadley Arkes to me awhile ago, and so I thought I'd share his story with you.
He converted before the JPLF was known to him and to many other Jews who feel compelled to resolve the moral dilemma posed by being Jewish in a time when Judaism is viewed by so many Jews as a religion that values the right to murder unborn children. Since we started our work in 2006, we've spoken to Jews who considered conversion but changed their minds when they found us. We've also been privileged to talk with righteous gentiles who wanted to convert to Judaism and did so after they found us.
In a 2012 interview with Marcia Segelstein in the National Catholic Register, Mr. Arkus explains that his pro-life views motivated him to seek conversion and the courage it took to share his convictions with family and friends. We know the courage required to stay Jewish and defend the God given right to life of unborn children in the face of hostility from abortion rights advocates among our family, friends, shul administrators and established institutions at every level of Jewish culture. We celebrate the courage of each and every one of our friends who face this opposition with us. Thank you!
Courage & Conversion: An Interview with Hadley Arkes
Cecily
May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.
