In a press release published in their website this Wednesday, the Satanic Temple announced the “Satanic Abortion Ritual” — a ritual that “provides spiritual comfort and affirms bodily autonomy, self-worth, and freedom from coercive forces with the affirmation of TST’s Seven Tenets.”
“The ritual is not intended to convince a person to have an abortion,” the press release read. “Instead, it sanctifies the abortion process by instilling confidence and protecting bodily rights when undergoing the safe and scientific procedure.”
The Friendly Atheist’s Hemant Mehta gives us an explainer:
“They’re basically using the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision — which an evangelical business owner used to prevent insurance providers from covering his employees’ birth control — to defend a woman’s right to choose,” Mehta writes.
“How does that work? The Satanists say the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) prohibits the government from interfering with someone’s religious practices (unless there’s a really good reason for it). Most states have their own versions of this law as well. By saying abortions in the first trimester are a religious ritual for their members, any states that have their own RFRA laws — and most anti-abortion states have them — would theoretically have to show why their (medically unnecessary) restrictions should override the Satanists’ religious freedom.”
Read the full press release over at the Satanic Temple’s website.
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