oldie but goodie? stumbled on this just now… it's nearly 6 months old and i don't recall seeing it mentioned here. could be early onset oltimerze…..
Satanists sue for religious right to ritual abortions
This past week while the nation was distracted by Joe Biden’s dementia-ridden incompetence and Andrew Cuomo’s predatory misogyny, The Satanic Temple of Texas filed suit to defend its religious right to engage in child sacrifice as a spiritual ritual.
The Dallas Observer reports as follows.
“[On Feb. 23, 2021] The Satanic Temple [of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston] filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas alleging certain state-mandated abortion regulations violate the religious liberty of its members … [and] violate the temple’s religious teachings. The Satanic Temple … wants its followers to be exempt from such regulations. The temple has members across the country, including in Texas.”
“It’s legal to get an abortion in Texas,” clarifies the Observer, “but the procedure is banned after 20 weeks unless a life-threatening medical condition is involved or the fetus has a severe abnormality. If a person is eligible, the state requires them to get a sonogram and receive paperwork about medical risks, adoption alternatives, and developmental stages of the fetus … The state then requires a woman to wait 24 hours after receiving the sonogram and paperwork before she can go through with the abortion …”
The Observer continues, “But the temple’s members consider abortion a ritualistic practice according to co-founder and spokesperson Lucien Greaves … [who maintains the] state regulations disrupt this ritual.”
“We have a distinct kind of procedure for this,” said Mr. Greaves, “and in no part of this do we include getting sonograms or any other medically unnecessary acts as are required in Texas. Therefore, the imposition of those things, we feel, is a violation of our religious liberty.”
Mr. Greaves goes further: “The ritual goes like this: Before the abortion takes place … a member of The Satanic Temple will look at her reflection, be reminded of her personhood and responsibility to herself, take deep breaths, focus on her intent and make herself comfortable. When ready, she will say the third and fifth tenet of the temple aloud.”
The Satanic third tenet reads, “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone,” and the fifth reads, “Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”
“[After the abortion],” says Mr. Greaves, “the woman would return to her reflection and cite her personal affirmation: ‘By my body, my blood. By my will, it is done.’”
The Observer offers this context for the Satanic suit: “In the Texas suit, an anonymous pregnant temple member has claimed that state regulations interfere with her religious ceremony and raise constitutional suspicions. The member lives 100 miles away from the nearest abortion clinic, the suit claims. It asks the state to reconsider four abortion regulations through the lens of religious liberty … The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division against the Texas Department of State Health Services and John Hellerstedt, the commissioner of the agency.”