(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) The Satanic Temple (TST) continues its attempts to overturn the prevention of baby murder in pro-life states by filing lawsuits, in which they claim that abortion is part of their religion.
TST, a nonprofit that is ironically based in Salem, Mass., has filed lawsuits in the states of Missouri, Indiana, Texas and Idaho, which have been unsuccessful so far, according to the Epoch Times.
Satanists claimed that they created an abortion ritual that would exempt women from their states’ laws. Both the ritual and TST’s new abortion clinic in New Mexico were featured in Cosmopolitan magazine in November 2023.
“The Satanic Abortion Ritual is a destruction ritual that serves as a protective rite. Its purpose is to cast off notions of guilt, shame, and mental discomfort that a patient may be experiencing due to choosing to have a legal and medically safe abortion,” TST’s website stated.
Satanists also said on their website that they use several legal arguments in their cases: denying members access to abortion infringes on their religious right to participate in a satanic abortion ritual, forcing someone to carry an unwanted child amounts to seizing a woman’s uterus without compensation and that forced pregnancy is akin to servitude, in violation of the 13th Amendment, which abolishes slavery.
In its Indiana legal case, TST argues that the abortion restrictions criminalize abortions resulting from protected sex and create a class of people who are discriminated against because they are denied the ability to murder their unborn child.
The case of a Christian business owner denying services to LGBT people on religious grounds is one of the examples of recent judicial rulings that the group uses as its legal strategy to flip the script on abortion bans.
However, ProLove Ministries founder and CEO Abby Johnson questioned the idea of religion without a deity.
“I think it’s interesting they’re trying to get a religious exemption when they say over and over and over again that Satanism isn’t a religion and they’re non-theistic. So, I’m like, ‘Tell me again how you are trying to get a religious exemption?’” she said.
