Women, poverty, and abortion politics

by: Rabbi Jill Jacobs

Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 11:43:43 AM EDT

When I heard about the tragic murder of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita doctor fatally shot in his church by an opponent of reproductive choice, I thought immediately about a group of brave women I met in Florida a couple of weeks ago.

On a tour to promote my book, There Shall be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights 2009), I stopped off in West Palm Beach to speak at the Presidential Women's Center, a clinic that provides abortions to women of all income levels. I was proud that sales of my book there raised several hundred dollars to provide abortions for women who cannot afford the procedure.

So what does my book, which deals with poverty, economic justice, and related issues have to do with the provision of abortion?

Much Needed Information

by: Hannah Farber

Thu May 01, 2008 at 17:07:55 PM EDT

Dr. King's Legacy: A Nation Without Poverty?

by: Simon Greer

Fri Apr 04, 2008 at 14:07:41 PM EDT

The night before his death, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recalled the story of Exodus. In a stirring valedictory, Dr. King reminded striking sanitation workers and their supporters at the Mason Temple that the Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness before they finally reached the Promised Land. "I may not get there with you," he predicted, but "I have seen the Promised Land."

While many Americans are familiar with the Exodus story, few realize that the Promised Land Dr. King envisioned in his Mountaintop speech was not just an America free from segregation. It was an America transformed; a nation that offered equal economic opportunity to all its citizens.

Forty years after Dr. King lost his life, we must ask ourselves: What is America doing to keep Dr. King's vision of equal economic opportunity alive?