INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge in Indianapolis has dismissed an attempt by The Satanic Temple to block Indiana’s near-total abortion ban.
The Satanic Temple — a nontheistic religious organization based in Salem, Massachusetts — filed a federal lawsuit last year, claiming that the new abortion ban violates Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
The group maintained the ban was unconstitutional and an infringement on its members’ religious beliefs.
In a ruling issued Wednesday, Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson said, “The Satanic Temple failed to demonstrate that its alleged cost of compliance or threat of prosecution amounts to injury. It had an opportunity to submit evidence, but failed on all fronts.”
The Satanic Temple’s lawsuit specifically sought to allow mail-order abortion drugs for its members in Indiana to have abortions. The temple operates a telehealth clinic based in New Mexico.
The plaintiffs said in their original complaint that Indiana’s ban makes the exercise of the Satanic abortion “ritual” a crime and that Indiana’s restrictions violate the rights of Hoosier Satanists who could become pregnant if their birth control fails.
But the temple refused to name any of its members or leadership in the lawsuit, citing the need to protect itself from “exposure to violence.” The judge said without being able to show whether any of its members are being harmed by the ban, the temple doesn’t have grounds to bring the lawsuit.
In earlier court filings, Indiana Attorney General Tood Rokita argued that the group didn’t have standing to sue because it had not submitted evidence showing that specific members would be harmed by the law.
A separate challenge to Indiana’s abortion law, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana, is still pending. That lawsuit also uses the state’s RFRA law to argue that the abortion ban infringes on the religious beliefs of plaintiffs of multiple faiths.
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