Satanic Temple challenges Missouri's abortion law on religious grounds
A group called The Satanic Temple is going to bat for a woman identified as "Mary Doe," who contends that the state’s informed consent law violated her religious beliefs.
There will be a showdown with Satan on Tuesday in the Missouri Supreme Court.
Not with Lucifer himself, but with a group called the Satanic Temple that is going to bat for a woman identified as "Mary Doe." She contends the state’s informed consent law, which required her to wait 72 hours before having an abortion in May 2015, violated her religious beliefs.
Specifically, the woman — identified in the case summary as a "Greene County resident" — says she was forced to view an ultrasound of her fetus and pledge that she read a booklet stating that the “life of every human being begins at conception.”
This despite the fact that Doe advised the doctors at the St. Louis clinic that "she adheres to principles of the Satanic temple and has sincerely held religious beliefs different from the information in the informed consent booklet," the case summary states.
"Specifically, her letter advised she has deeply held religious beliefs that a nonviable fetus is not a separate human being but is part of her body and that abortion of a nonviable fetus does not terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."
Jex Blackmore, a spokeswoman for the Satanic Temple, said the woman's religious rights were ignored.
“The State has essentially established a religious indoctrination program intended to push a single ideological viewpoint,” Blackmore said in a statement. “The law is intended to punish women who disagree with this opinion.”
The state will be represented by lawyers from the office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is one of the defendants named in Doe’s lawsuit along with Gov. Eric Greitens, who is currently embroiled in a steamy sex scandal.
While Hawley’s office did not release any new statement in advance of Tuesday’s hearing, it is expected to argue, as it did last year, that Doe “failed to allege any conflict between her putative Satanic beliefs and the operation of the Informed Consent Law.”
The Satanic Temple filed state and federal lawsuits on behalf of Doe in May 2015.
“Missouri’s state-mandated informed consent booklets explicitly say that life begins at conception, which is a nonmedical religious viewpoint that many people disagree with,” Blackmore said in a statement Monday. “Forcing women to read this information and then wait 72-hours to consider the State’s opinion is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/satanic-temple-challenges-missouri-s-abortion-law-religious-grounds-n839891