Religious challenges to abortion bans unfold in Indiana and Kentucky

“I need to call on everyone who stands for religious freedom, women’s rights and those who believe medical decisions should happen in the sacred space between a doctor and their patient to stand with us as we try to explain why these laws are unjust.”

— Jessica Kalb, a Jewish woman suing over Kentucky’s abortion ban

Indiana’s high court is set to hear a case Thursday to determine whether the state’s abortion ban infringes on religion. The lawsuit was brought by a coalition that has led similar legal challenges in Florida and Kentucky. 

Hoosiers Jews for Choice and individual plaintiffs of various faiths filed a lawsuit against Indiana officials in 2022, arguing that the state’s near-total abortion violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The state law prevents the government from interfering with a person’s religious practice unless it has a compelling reason, Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. 

“We believe that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should include all religions, including people who do not have specific religious beliefs but have spiritual or personal beliefs for abortion,” said Amalia Shifriss, co-founder of Hoosier Jews for Choice, in a Tuesday statement shared by the ACLU of Indiana. 

The plaintiffs argue that tenets of the Jewish faith state that life begins after a newborn takes their first breath, and that the health of the pregnant person outweighs the potential life of a fetus, embryo or zygote, according to court documents.  

In March, a state superior court judge issued a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. The case was set to go before an appeals court, but Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita petitioned to fast-track the case to the state Supreme Court.

“As we have with every challenge against our pro-life law, we’ll continue fighting to protect the lives of the unborn,” a spokesperson for Rokita told the Capital Chronicle this spring. 

A similar case is unfolding in Kentucky, where three Jewish women sued the state in 2023 and argued that the state’s abortion ban violates religious tenets. 

In July, a state appeals court ruled that one of the women could move forward with her complaint, but that the other two lacked standing, Kentucky Lantern reported. The case is headed back to a circuit court to gauge the overall merits of the lawsuit. 

One of the plaintiffs, Jessica Kalb, has polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS, a reproductive health condition leading to heavy or irregular periods, hormone balances and, in some cases, ovarian cysts. 

Kalb has frozen embryos in storage, but she is hesitant to move forward with in vitro fertilization because of Kentucky’s abortion ban. 

“I need to call on everyone who stands for religious freedom, women’s rights and those who believe medical decisions should happen in the sacred space between a doctor and their patient to stand with us as we try to explain why these laws are unjust,” she told the Lantern. 

Kentucky Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman told the Lantern that state law protects IVF: “We are confident that the circuit court will agree once again.”

A lawsuit filed by a Florida rabbi in 2022, when the state had a 15-week abortion ban, did not make it as far as the Kentucky and Indiana lawsuits; it was dismissed the following year. 

Most religious Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, aside from Hispanic Protestants, Latter-Day Saints, white evangelical Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll released in April.

Next on our Stories From The States podcast: Flight 93 crashed on his land. He remembers the heroes 25 years later.

When United Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001, Tim Lambert was on his way to work at a public radio station. In the newsroom, he saw the televised images of the wreckage in a field near Shanksville and thought the trees looked familiar. Later that night, his dad left a message on his answering machine saying, “Those are our trees.”

Lambert and his family, by chance, became a part of the story of Flight 93. In Episode 45, you’ll hear from Pennsylvania Capital-Star Editor-in-Chief Tim Lambert. For 25 years, he has reported on Flight 93, kept in contact with many of the victims’ families and shared their stories.