Satanic Temple Sues Indiana, Idaho, Says Abortion ‘Ban’ Violates Its Abortion Ritual
(CNS News) -- The Satanic Temple (TST), based in Salem, Mass., sued the State of Indiana on Sept. 21, arguing that the state’s abortion ban, which prohibits nearly all abortions, violates the temple’s religious beliefs and practices, specifically a Satanic Abortion Ritual. The group also filed a nearly identical lawsuit against Idaho on Sept. 30.
As the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court Southern District of Indiana, states, “Pregnant TST members can and do get abortions, where they are legal, to terminate an unwanted pregnancy as an exercise of their religious beliefs pursuant to the Satanic Abortion Ritual.… When a member of TST has an unwanted pregnancy, she exercises her religious beliefs as expressions of Tenets III and V by engaging in the Satanic Abortion Ritual.
“The Indiana Abortion Ban effectively prohibits the exercise of the Satanic Abortion Ritual.… The Indiana Abortion Ban violates the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
As described by the TST in the lawsuit, “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.”
“The purpose of the ritual is not to persuade someone to have an abortion if they are undecided,” says the TST. “Instead, the ritual serves to assist in confirming their decision and to ward off the effects of unjust persecution, which can cause one to stray from the paths of scientific reasoning and free will that TST members strive to embody.”
The Satanic Temple claims that because it is a religion, its practices are protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. In the latter case, the court ruled (5-4) the Department of Health and Human Services could not mandate that religious employers provide contraceptive coverage to their workers.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which returned the power to regulate abortions to the states. Since that ruling , many states have severely restricted abortion and some states have removed nearly all regulations.
Indiana’s law banning most abortions went into effect on Sept. 15. As reported, the law only allows “abortions in order to prevent a serious health risk or death of the mother, when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest up to 10 weeks post fertilization or when the fetus has been determined to have a fatal anomaly up to 20 weeks.”
Nonetheless, an Indiana judge slapped a preliminary injunction on the law on Sept. 22, saying that a lawsuit by Indiana’s abortion clinics merits a hearing. The clinics claim the law violates the state constitution on access to medical procedures.
Besides that medical access lawsuit, the Satanic Temples says it “stands alone because we are the only entity that can assert a religious liberty claim that terminating a pregnancy is a central part of a religious ritual that encourages self-empowerment and affirms bodily autonomy.”
According to its website, "The Satanic Temple has become the primary religious Satanic organization in the world with congregations internationally, and a number of high-profile public campaigns designed to preserve and advance secularism and individual liberties."
The temple also claims that its does not worship Satan: "No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions."
A ruling on the temple’s lawsuits has not yet been made.
Kanye West: ‘I’m Pro-Life,’ ‘I Care About the Fact that There’s More Black Babies Aborted than Being Born in New York City’
Rap icon and billionaire fashion mogul Kanye West restated his well-known pro-life stance during his explosive interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday, citing the abundance of black babies being aborted in New York City.
Wearing the photograph of a baby’s ultrasound, Kanye expressed his support for the pro-life cause while highlighting the overwhelming number of black babies aborted in the United States.
“I’m pro-life,” he said.
“What kind of response do you get?” Carlson asked in reference to the badge.
“I don’t care about people’s responses, I care about the fact that there’s more black babies being aborted than born in New York City at this point. That 50 percent of black death in America is abortion. So I really don’t care about people’s responses, I perform for an audience of one, and that’s God.”
Watch below:
Indeed, Breitbart entertainment editor Jerome Hudson noted in his first book, 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know, that, according to a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hydiene study, from 2012 to 2016 more black pregnancies ended in abortion than live birth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted in 2014 that 78 percent of babies aborted in New York City in 2011 were either black or Hispanic. As Breitbart News reported at the time:
The latest abortion surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that, in New York City in 2011, 77.56 percent of the abortions performed were black and Hispanic babies.
The results of the CDC data find a total of 76,251 abortions were reported in New York City in 2011, which represents a rate of 42.2 percent. Of the babies aborted, 35,188, or 46.1 percent of the total number, were black, and 23,959, or 31.4 percent, were Hispanic. White babies aborted totaled 9.550, or 12.5 percent.
Breitbart News reported in February that a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene report found more black babies were killed by abortion in the city than were actually born there in 2012.
Kanye West’s pro-life stance has been known and public for years. In 2020, for instance, he told podcaster Joe Rogan that abortion has been used as a means to “kill the black race” and for population control.
“Let me talk about Planned Parenthood. There’s the last figure I saw is there were 210,000 deaths that’s due to COVID in America. And everywhere you go, you see someone with a mask on … With abortion culture, there are 1,000 black children aborted a day,” he said.
“We are in genocide. So, more black children have died in the past, since February, than people have died of COVID, and everyone wears a mask,” he continued. “So, it’s a matter of where are we turning a blind eye to? The media can control, a lot of times it has control what we care about.”
In September of that year, Kanye West also told Nick Cannon on his show “Cannon’s Class” that abortion conglomerate Planned Parenthood kills black people “strategically and on purpose.”
“In 50 years, there’s been 22 million — over 22,500,000 — black people aborted strategically and on purpose. Planned Parenthood was set up and placed in minority communities to kill black people,” he said.
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