In a cynical and disgusting ploy, pro-abortion members of the New York State Senate attempted to use one of the senator's Orthodox Jewish faith to keep him from voting against a pro-abortion amendment.
The Jewish Sabbath begins at approximately sundown and extends until approximately Saturday sundown. Jews whom observe the Sabbath are forbidden to work or travel or during that time, and will schedule their lives and business so as not to violate this prohibition.
One of the Senators is pro-life Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jew who is a Democrat but caucuses with the Republicans.
Here's what happened on June 28th, a Friday:
Pro-choice Democrats in the state Senate plotted to ram through an abortion-rights amendment during the Jewish Sabbath to prevent pro-life Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jew, from casting a vote, critics charged.
The controversial June 28 deliberations put Felder in a quandary. If he left Albany to observe Shabbat, the abortion proposal had a chance of passing. But if he stayed, he would be violating religious observance.
“The Democrats were counting votes. They were waiting for Simcha to leave. They thought they were going to get away with that,” said Deputy Senate GOP leader Tom Libous.
“I told Simcha, ‘They’re waiting for you to leave.’ They didn’t care. It was extremely insensitive,” Libous added.
Felder agreed it was wrong to have a conscience issue like abortion brought up on or just before a religious observance.
“I was told that they [the Democrats] were waiting for me to leave,” Felder said. “I was pretty dumbfounded why the vote couldn’t take place a day or two before the Sabbath.”
What Senator Felder did next was to phone his rabbi and ask for advice. And his rabbi reminded him that since this was a matter of life and death, he was compelled to stay and cast his vote.
When the Democrats saw that Felder wasn't leaving and they also wanted to adjourn for the day, Senator Jeff Klein, head of the four-member Independent Democratic Caucus, finally brought the amendment up for a vote at 4:50 p.m.
Felder voted no, the bill failed to garner the 32 votes needed to pass and Felder then raced to get home before the Sabbath started.
What's most disgraceful is that the plot to keep Felder from voting was probably hatched by a non-observant secular Jewish Democrat, who knew just enough about Jewish law to understand that Felder would have to leave without voting because he was Sabbath observant - but not enough about Jewish law to understand that the saving of human life supersedes that.
(H/t, The Lid)
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