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A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans

(JTA) — The abortion debate is often portrayed as a clash between religious beliefs on the pro-life side and secular or humanist convictions on the pro-choice side. Indeed, lawmakers and activists have often invoked God in enacting state bans on abortion since the Supreme Court, in last year’s Dobbs decision, struck down a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Some clergy and faith groups, however, including a number of Jews, are pushing back. In efforts to overturn these restrictions, they have been pressing a legal strategy claiming that abortion bans violate their religious liberty. In Kentucky, a case brought by three Jewish women argues that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their religious beliefs about when life begins and protecting a mother’s life. In Indiana, a suit brought by Hoosier Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths demands exemptions from the state’s abortion ban for people whose religions support abortion rights. 

In Florida, a synagogue filed a lawsuit saying the state’s abortion restrictions violate the religious freedom rights of Jews.

“Judaism has never defined life beginning at conception,” the Kentucky suit says, adding that “millennia of commentary from Jewish scholars has reaffirmed Judaism’s commitment to reproductive rights.”

Although Orthodox organizations support restrictions that allow abortion only under rare circumstances, most American Jews and their representative organizations back wide abortion access.

To understand the legal strategy behind these state-level religious challenges to abortion bans, JTA spoke Friday with Elizabeth Reiner Platt, the director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School. Last year, the center published “A Religious Right to Abortion: History & Analysis,” a memo intended for lawyers, activists, faith leaders and journalists. 

Platt spoke about what Politico recently called “the sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans,” two recent Supreme Court cases on religion and how the conservative court is approaching religion in general. 

Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Last August you released a report analyzing how religion law might apply in legal challenges to abortion bans. Can you summarize the strategy?

I always like to start by saying that the idea that religious liberty includes a right to make decisions about one’s reproductive health care is not just a legal strategy that folks came up with in response to Dobbs. It is how religious groups themselves have been talking about their understanding of reproductive rights for a very long time. I have a handy list of denominational statements from a range of different traditions, including some Jewish groups, as well as Lutheran, Presbyterian and Unitarian Universalist back from the ’80s and ’90s saying reproductive rights are a religious liberty issue for them and for their congregations.

One of the most valuable things in that report is the case index that shows cases going back from the ’70s, the pre-Roe era, that make this legal claim where people of faith have said, “Our religious beliefs motivate us to help people access reproductive health care.” The report essentially lays out the different kinds of legal arguments to be made for a religious liberty right to provide access or facilitate abortion care. And we’re now seeing that happen and a handful of lawsuits across the country including Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Indiana and Idaho. Several of those cases include Jewish plaintiffs [including Missouri, where five rabbis from multiple Jewish denominations are among more than a dozen Missouri faith leaders challenging the state’s ban on abortion]. There’s a very interesting lawsuit in Kentucky right now involving three Jewish women who actually focus on their religious obligation to have children using in vitro fertilization. And so their complaint overlays on both the state constitution as well as the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and says that they have a religious right to seek IVF care, but also because of their age and other factors they have a higher risk of pregnancy complications, and so they’re including as part of that complaint right to access abortion care in accordance with their religious beliefs.

How does the IVF relate to abortion in this sense? Are they arguing that abortion is similarly included in a full range of gynecological and obstetric care?

Basically, they make the case that they want access to IVF but also that some of the claimants in the past have had really serious fetal anomalies and believe that the religiously motivated decision for them at that time was to seek abortion care.

Members of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice and IfNotNow hold signs that say “Baruch Hashem [Bless God] For Abortion” at a rally at New York City Foley Square, May 2, 2023. (Jacob Henry)

Have there been rulings over the years that accept the right to abortion as a question of religious liberty? 

I’ll start by saying they’re kind of two basic ways a claim can be made.There are concrete Free Exercise Clause claims that essentially say, “My religious beliefs motivate me to seek this care to make this decision. And abortion bans therefore stifle my religious practice.” And that kind of claim would typically result not in overturning an abortion ban, but in providing a religious exemption for the claimant. The other way to make a religion claim is to say, “This abortion ban is actually religiously motivated and improperly enshrines one particular religious view into law, and it’s therefore a violation of a federal or state Establishment Clause provision.” And that kind of challenge would, if successful, overturn the law completely for everybody. 

There is not a lot of case law on the former. There have been many challenges, but they’ve almost all been dismissed on things like standing or mootness — technical, legal things. The big exception is right now: There is a case being brought by the ACLU of Indiana that relies on that state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was a very contentious law passed several years ago by then Gov. Mike Pence. That case did, at the trial court level, succeed in granting religious exemption to the claimants [which remains in effect even as the Indiana Supreme Court allowed the state’s total abortion ban to take effect Aug. 1]. That’s the first major decision that we’ve seen post-Dobbs.

Is it fair to say that the same law that ostensibly would have protected conservative religious behavior is being deployed from a progressive standpoint?

That is certainly how it gets framed a lot. But these laws should ideally always be applied neutrally, across the denominational and the political spectrum, and have long been used by people of all different faiths and denominations. I deeply do not think that this is some sort of clever legal tactic. We’re seeing, in the wake of Dobbs, ideas and language that have been promoted by religious groups for many, many, many years.

In the current political climate, do you think courts are inclined to accept the right to abortion as a question of religious liberty? 

I think there’s definitely an appetite for these arguments. There was a really interesting lower court decision in Kentucky a while back, when a judge ruled that the state’s abortion ban violated religious liberty — without that argument even having been made by either party, which is extremely unusual. I think [that] really shows that there is an appetite for these claims. It’s important to say that almost all of these claims are being brought in state court. Most litigators are bringing cases that would not end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m not Pollyannaish about the fact that we have very conservative state judiciaries and a lot of these states are very opposed to abortion, but I think the legal claims themselves based on doctrine should be very strong.

An argument I’ve heard in the Jewish community is that because some of the Jewish plaintiffs pressing religious freedom arguments aren’t Orthodox or traditionally observant Jews — in other words, because they do not act according to traditional Jewish law in other aspects of their life — they shouldn’t be making religious claims in this one area of reproductive rights. Do the courts take into consideration the extent of perceived sincerity or consistency of a party’s beliefs and actions when they review these cases?

Courts can absolutely look at religious sincerity, but I also think it’s outrageous to say that “only Orthodox Jews are sincere.” You know the old saw: two Jews, three opinions. What matters is not getting an Orthodox rabbi in the stand to give expert advice on the Talmud. What matters is the plaintiffs’ own understanding of their Judaism and what it looks like in practice. People can be very sincere about how they practice their Judaism without necessarily being glatt kosher or what have you. Courts tend to use a pretty light touch when it comes to sincerity.

Going back to the Establishment Clause, can you explain to me how an entire ethos that seems to be very much based in religious conceptions of when life begins can make it into secular law without running afoul of the Constitution? Some of these abortion bans seem to me to be examples of one denomination’s religious views becoming everyone’s law. How does that pass muster?

The key case on this is Harris v. McRae from the ’80s, which was a case that challenged the federal Hyde Amendment that bans almost all federal funding for abortion. The challengers made that exact claim: that this is based on a particular conception of when life begins and is essentially a religious restriction. And that case lost before the Supreme Court. The court said that just because a law happens to overlap with particular religious beliefs, it doesn’t make it an inherently religious law. And honestly, since then, the Court’s conception of the Establishment Clause has gotten narrower and narrower.

Right to Life advocates pray during a sit-in in front of a Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

That does not mean, however, that that’s the end of the story. Again, I’ll say that most of these claims are being brought under state rather than federal provisions. And we’re now seeing state legislators being much more frank and forthright about their religious motivations when passing some of these laws, in a way that can be relevant to new Establishment Clause challenges. So, for example, the Missouri case which is being brought by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and National Women’s Law Center [filed on behalf of 13 clergy members from six faith traditions, saying that the state’s abortion ban establishes one religious view about abortion as the law of the land in violation of the Missouri constitution]. It’s a challenge under the state’s Establishment Clause. And they point to the fact among other things that the law has the words “Almighty God” right in the text of the statute. That is pretty shocking and unusual. 

I’d like to shift gears and talk about some of the other religion cases of the last week. The court ruled last week in Groff v. DeJoy that employers had to show a substantial burden before curtailing accommodations for religious employees, who may seek accommodations for the Sabbath, or wearing distinct dress. Groff was a postal worker who argued he shouldn’t have to work on his Sabbath. What did you think about the unanimous ruling?

This is an unusual example of the court taking at least somewhat of a middle path. They could have ruled very explicitly that the needs of coworkers don’t matter and shouldn’t be considered, and thankfully they didn’t. Ultimately, neither side got exactly what it wanted. I mean, Groff did not get his religious exemption yet. The court tweaked the test by which it will be evaluated, and according to my reading of the case, there is ample opportunity for the lower court to look at the new test and say, “Your request was really burdensome on the operation of this very small postal office, and you don’t get [your accommodation].” The jury’s still out on that case and I think we might see a real kind of diversity in how it ends up getting implemented in practice.

In another important ruling on religion and the law, the court ruled that a website designer could decline to provide service to a same-sex couple based on her assertion that she has a religious objection to creating messages that promote a view she doesn’t accept. I was intrigued by your tweet: “The decision in #303Creative today is not a win for religious liberty.” How did you mean that?

We wrote an amicus brief in this case on behalf of a bunch of religious minority organizations and faith-based organizations from a lot of different denominations. The point we made was that if we want to make sure that people can exercise their religion openly in a pluralistic society and without being chilled or in fear that they’re going to get turned away and unable to access services because they’re wearing a hijab or a yarmulke, then we need robust civil rights laws. A return to a segregated marketplace is going to maybe help a few religious believers who happen to own small businesses, but overall it’s going to have a real chilling effect on religious diversity and pluralism in smaller communities. Our point was that civil rights law shouldn’t be seen as being in conflict with religious liberty, but in fact, civil rights law is what has helped religious minorities thrive in the United States. And you know, I mentioned in my tweet that when my parents were kids, the “Jewish Vacation Guide” was still helping families figure out whether they were going to get turned away from hotels and such.

To take a broader view of the Supreme Court for a second, it’s clearly privileging religion in ways not seen in previous courts. The New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse has written that the conservative supermajority completely identifies with “the movement in the country’s politics to elevate religion over all other elements of civil society.” I’m wondering if you agree with that assessment. And if so, what are its implications? I know that for a lot of our readers, it’s a great thing to elevate religion over other elements of civil society. 

I would tweak it, because there are religion claims that don’t succeed. For example, there have been a lot of cases involving the targeting of Muslims, questioning people about their religious beliefs and practices at the border and the surveillance of mosques and religious groups, and very famously the court’s upholding of the Trump Muslim travel ban. In those cases, religious liberty did not win out over other elements. So I agree that the court has sided with particular, primarily conservative, Christian religious liberty claims. But I don’t think that that is going to protect everyone.

To conclude again with abortion: I don’t know if you are familiar with the work of Rutgers professor Michal Raucher, who argues that Jewish movements like hers — she is a Conservative Jew — should be arguing the case for abortion from the perspective of women’s bodily autonomy, and not the more narrow case that Jewish law allows abortions in some limited circumstances. Are religious challenges to abortion bans just sort of the flip side of religious opposition to abortion — they downplay the autonomy of women as individuals by making their decision-making a matter of church or synagogue doctrine? 

This is sort of an age-old strategy question. If you look at the pro-life movement, there was a lot of argument between a “chip away over time” strategy or a more absolutist constitutional amendment saying that personhood starts at the moment of conception. We can have shorter term and longer term strategies, and I don’t know that it’s necessary to pick one. Even to the extent some of these lawsuits don’t end up succeeding, there is value in showing the diversity of religious beliefs on reproductive healthcare, because I think conservative Christians have had such a dominant presence over the issue of religion and abortion. There’s been a lot of history lost. I think of things like the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, which was a national network of clergy members who helped people access abortion, vetted illegal abortion providers and also helped people access care abroad. And that history has been all but lost. So yes, I think there can be multiple narratives happening at the same time.


The post A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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ADL Research: 24% of Americans Believe Recent Violence Against Jews Is ‘Understandable’

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the US on May 22, 2025. Photo: Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via REUTERS

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report on Friday revealing American attitudes about antisemitic violence following the targeted attacks earlier this year against Jews in Boulder, Colo., Harrisburg, Pa., and Washington, D.C. The watchdog group found a sizable minority (24 percent) found the attacks “understandable” while 13 percent regarded them as “justified.”

The ADL surveyed a representative sample of 1000 Americans on Thursday, ensuring the group matched accurate proportions of the country’s demography. The findings showed disparate views across age groups and partisan affiliations while also a clear, majority consensus on many questions.

The survey showed that 87 percent of respondents believed the three recent antisemitic attacks to be unjustifiable while 85 percent called them morally wrong and 77 percent assessed them as antisemitic. Eighty-six percent regarded the violence against Jews as hate crimes.  However, nearly a quarter of respondents said the attacks were “understandable.”

More Republicans (15 percent) than Democrats (11 percent) regarded the attacks as justified, while more Republicans (79 percent) than Democrats (77 percent) saw the attacks as antisemitic. Partisan differences also manifested in support for increased government action against antisemitism with 74 percent of Republicans in favor compared to 81 percent of Democrats.

In presenting their research findings, the ADL emphasized the broad agreement in American opposition to antisemitic violence and conspiracist tropes before noting the presence of a distinct minority of “millions of people who excuse or endorse violence against Jews—an alarming sign of how anti-Jewish narratives are spreading.” For example, 67 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans agree that antisemitism is a serious problem.

Smaller numbers among the Democrats (25 percent) and Republicans (23 percent) will acknowledge antisemitism as a concern in their own party. The ADL poll suggests the legitimacy of such suspicions, finding that “28 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats agreed with tropes such as Jews have too much influence in politics and media.”

Partisan affiliations correlated with where respondents saw the most significant antisemitic threats. Republicans expressed a 3.6 times greater likelihood of worries about left-wing antisemitism compared to Democrats who were 4.4 times as likely to focus on right-wing antisemitism.

The pollsters found that attitudes toward the severity of the antisemitic threat differed according to age.

While 80 percent of silent generation respondents saw antisemitism as a serious problem, that number fell to 65 percent for baby boomers and members of Generation X. The rates dropped again for millennials (52 percent) and Gen-Zers (55 percent).

Perceptions of antisemitism in local communities also differed by generation. While 19 percent of Americans overall report having witnessed antisemitism in their communities, that figure jumps to 33 percent for Gen-Zers and 20 percent for millennials. Among the boomers it drops to 10 percent and for Silent Generation respondents it reaches 17 percent.

Large numbers saw the threat of popular protest slogans “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” with 68 percent seeing the phrases as potentially fueling violence, a view held even among 54 percent of those who favor protests against Israel.

Researchers also observed a correlation between Israel support and perceiving the seriousness of antisemitism in America. While 74 percent of those favorable to Israel saw domestic antisemitism as significant, only 57 percent of those with negative views of the Jewish state agreed.

Nearly a quarter of those polled—24 percent—expressed the conspiratorial view that some group had staged the attacks to provoke sympathy for Israel. A second report also released by the ADL on Friday showed the rise in discussions of “false flag” attacks on the Reddit website in response to the antisemitic violence.

The ADL warned that “these beliefs are especially dangerous because they justify holding Jewish Americans responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, effectively viewing them as collectively responsible for international politics—making them greater targets.”

The post ADL Research: 24% of Americans Believe Recent Violence Against Jews Is ‘Understandable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders Calls on Democrats to Stop Accepting Money From AIPAC

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), took to X/Twitter on Monday to call on all Democrats to stop accepting political donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro‑Israel lobbying entity.

In his tweet, Sanders wrote that AIPAC has aided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in waging an “illegal and immoral war being waged against the Palestinian people.” Sanders continued, claiming that “NO Democrat should accept money from AIPAC” while asserting that the organization helped “deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.”

Sanders’s post came in response to comments by former Obama administration foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes, in which Rhodes urged Democrats to reject all future donations from AIPAC. Rhodes argued that AIPAC has influenced Democrats to take immoral stances on the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

“AIPAC is part of the constellation of forces that has delivered this country into the hands of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, and you cannot give them a carve out,” Rhodes said on an episode of the podcast Pod Save the World. “We need to have this fight as a party, because these are the wrong people to have under your tent.”

Tommy Vietor, another former Obama administration official and podcast co-host, agreed, accusing AIPAC of “funneling money to front organizations that primary progressive Democrats.” 

AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying firm in the US, has historically backed pro-Israel candidates from both parties. The organization does not specifically lobby against progressive candidates. AIPAC has aided the campaigns of pro-Israel progressives such as Ritchie Torres. 

Sanders has long held an acrimonious relationship with AIPAC. In November 2023, he repudiated the group for supposedly having”supported dozens of GOP extremists who are undermining our democracy,” and urged his fellow Democrats to stand together in the fight for a world of peace, economic and social justice and climate sanity.”

Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser under President Obama, has emerged as a vocal critic of Israeli policy, particularly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His skepticism is rooted in years of diplomatic frustration during the Obama administration, especially surrounding failed peace negotiations and Israel’s settlement expansions in the West Bank. Rhodes has often framed Israel’s hardline stance as a major obstacle to a two-state solution, and he has been critical of what he sees as unconditional U.S. support that enables right-wing Israeli policies. His stance reflects a broader shift among some American progressives who advocate for a more balanced U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sanders has long been a staunch critic of the Jewish state. Sanders has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “collective punishment” and “apartheid” against the Palestinian people. Although the senator initially condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel by Hamas, he subsequently pushed for a “ceasefire” between the Jewish state and the terrorist group. Sanders also spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to implement a partial arms embargo on Israel in 2024.

In the 20 months following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, relations between the Democratic party and the Jewish state have deteriorated. Democratic lawmakers have grown more vocally critical of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, sometimes arguing that the Jewish state has recklessly endangered lives of Palestinian civilians. Moreover, polls indicate that Democratic voters have largely turned against Israel, intensifying pressure on liberal lawmakers to shift their tone regarding the war in Gaza.

The post Sen. Bernie Sanders Calls on Democrats to Stop Accepting Money From AIPAC first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic

Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.

Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.

For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”

The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.

Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.

Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.

In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”

Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”

The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.

“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.

Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.

In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.

According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.

Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.

All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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