Members of The Satanic Temple's St. Louis chapter attended yesterday's hearing wearing "I Am Mary" t-shirts in an expression of solidarity with plaintiff "Mary Doe"

The Satanic Temple, which has filed both State and Federal lawsuits against Missouri abortion restrictions -- restrictions that the organization feels violate their deeply-held beliefs in bodily autonomy and scientifically-reasoned personal choice -- had their first hearing yesterday, September 28th, in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court in Cole County. The hearing, in consideration of the State’s Motion To Dismiss, has not yet resulted in a decision, though the facile -- even ludicrous -- nature of the defense’s arguments, leaves us all but entirely certain that the suit will move forward into trial.

As the abortion restrictions The Satanic Temple are challenging are not at all unique to Missouri, and are, in fact, part of a nationwide religious-conservative effort to undermine reproductive rights, the outcome of this case is certain to have serious lasting ramifications upon the ongoing abortion debate.

Of course, the very fact that this case is being fought in Court at all will have lasting consequences upon the dialogue regarding Religious Liberty and exemption in the United States. As the advance of scientific understanding has rendered most subjects of Higher Education incompatible with theistic superstitions, the demon-haunted Evangelical has increasingly turned toward politics as the final (nominally) respectable career path, where the hope seems to be that Truth can be legislated into existence where evidence fails. Thus, Evolution and Global Warming become political debates, while the science is long since resolved. Now finding our offices of public service besieged by such retrogressive minds, we see that their prevalence has emboldened them to believe that Religious Liberty is theirs alone to claim.

Specifically at issue are Missouri’s “Informed Consent” materials and a 72-hour mandatory abortion waiting period.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, attorneys for the state of Missouri, at yesterday’s hearing, argued before the Judge that the 72-hour waiting period did not prevent “Mary Doe” from terminating her pregnancy, expressing annoyance that one might raise such severe protests against a mere matter of “timing”.

“I don’t know of any other case where the issue has been purely the timing of something,” attorney John Hirth is quoted, “We’re not talking about a right to engage in a religious practice, we’re talking about the right to engage in the practice when you want to.”

Never mind that this “timing” creates a substantial burden upon women who are required to arrive at the clinic 72 hours in advance of the abortion to collect contested “Informed Consent” propaganda. With only one such clinic in Missouri, some women face hours of travel, the need to take time away from work, and the requirement of two such trips, just to appease the State’s arbitrary “timing” requirement. (The religiously-motivated propagandistic nature of the Informed Consent materials themselves aren’t actually an issue at all, according to Hirth, as the woman who is required to receive them is not actually required to read them.)

In fact, I can think of several cases which, reduced to the most simplistic of terms, are based purely upon “the timing of something.” Indeed, it becomes difficult to imagine a crime or complaint that isn’t a matter of timing, once one employs a certain self-serving reductive logic. A stabbing is an unfortunate matter of bad timing in which one’s physical presence in one place overlaps the presence of a blade. What is a speeding ticket if not a punishment for arriving from point A to point B early? It’s not theft -- acquisition merely preceded payment. I would love to see how well this argument would play out if an employer decided that she would respect a religious holiday, but on her own time: You may take Christmas off in April, when it’s more convenient for business purposes.

One commenter on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked, “Does this mean I can collect my Social Security 9 months before my 66th birthday if I move to Missouri?”, to which another replied, “Yes and teenagers can drive at 15 + 3 months, vote at 17 + 3 months, and drink at 20 + 3 months. I just hope it doesn't mean we get to die 3 months earlier.”

The Informed Consent propaganda, for those not familiar, are false and/or biased scare material meant to dissuade women from their determination to terminate their pregnancy. They are meant to inspire guilt and shame. These materials, along with the waiting period, are a bald attempt by Christian conservatives to render abortions an untenable and overly insulting procedure.

As the Informed Consent materials are by no means a medical necessity, nor are they scientifically legitimate -- and they even go so far as to proselytize a religious view (specifically that life begins at conception) -- The Satanic Temple finds the compulsory nature of their dissemination a violation of a Satanist’s religious rights. Satanic Templars (adherents of The Satanic Temple’s tenets) believe that “the body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” and that one’s decisions should be made with deference to the best available scientific information. On those grounds, the Informed Consent materials are rejected. As the 72-hour waiting period is justified as time necessary during which a woman should consider those materials, The Satanic Temple has drawn up a waiver of religious exemption from both the propaganda and waiting period, to be presented upon entering a clinic for the termination of a pregnancy. “Mary Doe” in Missouri presented the letter to Planned Parenthood, found it rejected, whereupon the lawsuit was filed.

The letter stated, in part:



“This letter is my statement that I choose to have an abortion today —now — and without further review of the Booklet. I make that choice voluntarily, freely, and without coercion. I am informed to my satisfaction — both as a religious and a scientific matter — that an abortion will not terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

The suit leverages Missouri’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) -- an increasingly popular law amongst politicians who find themselves deathly afraid for the spiritual purity of Christian bakers -- bakers who, without RFRA, may be forced to decorate homosexual pastries.

Missouri responded with a Motion To Dismiss, in which it was argued that the suit fails to “state a claim upon which relief can be granted”:



Plaintiff does not identify a single act that (a) she is substantially motivated by her religious beliefs to perform, but (b) she is restricted from performing by Missouri law. Plaintiff doesn’t allege that she was substantially motivated by her religious beliefs to seek an abortion. Nor does she allege that she was substantially motivated by her religious beliefs to do so within 72 hours of deciding to end her pregnancy. Rather, Plaintiff alleges that she disagrees with the content of the written materials Missouri law requires abortion providers to give women seeking abortions at least 72 hours before an abortion is performed. But even assuming Plaintiff’s disagreement with the content of those written materials is substantially motivated by her religious beliefs, her disagreement is neither an act nor a failure to act. Nothing [...] requires Plaintiff to agree with the content of the state-mandated written materials anyway. The statute doesn’t even require that Plaintiff read the materials. It merely requires that the materials are presented to her at least 72 hours before the abortion is performed.

While the State's Motion to Dismiss may well just be a standard opening maneuver, the laughable nature of their argument can't help but signify a certain degree of desperation. The State's Informed Consent propaganda, mandatory for dissemination to all women seeking to terminate a pregnancy 72 hours before an abortion, explicitly put forward items of religion opinion, such as the notion that life begins at conception. We argue that the Informed Consent materials, and the 72-hour mandatory waiting period that is imposed with them, is a violation of our religious liberty. Women whose decision to terminate a pregnancy is informed by her deeply-held belief in Satanic principles of bodily autonomy and scientific deference should not be made to endure State-sanctioned proselytization of a conflicting religious perspective. Nor should the course of action determined by adherence to her religious principles be intentionally and arbitrarily delayed by the 72-hour waiting period. Absurdly, the State now argues that while abortion providers by law must make certain information available to a patient 72 hours before the procedure "it does not compel these patents to accept, read or agree with" the "Informed Consent" materials. If the Court were to accept this argument, imagine the untenable and disastrous precedent it would set. It would be analogous to a public school forcing Bibles upon children, but arguing their behavior isn't problematic so long as they don't explicitly require the Bibles actually be read. Further, this does nothing to address the issue of the 72-hour waiting period. If the Informed Consent materials are meant to be understood as wholly optional, then at the very least, women being presented with the materials should clearly be allowed to opt-out of receiving them, and thus bypass the burdensome 72-hour waiting period. Even then, however, I believe there is still an Establishment Clause problem in the State's endorsement of religious opinions, optional or not. In any case, I'm pleased to see that our case is strong enough that this Motion to Dismiss was the best Missouri could do. I think this bodes very well for our prospects of a momentous victory in defense of reproductive rights.

[The Defendant’s] formulation of “required” and “prohibited” conduct misstates Section 1.303.2, which explicitly provides the act or refusal to act does not necessarily have to be “compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.” [...] All of the judicial interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause and Religious Freedom Restoration statutes recognize the “exercise of religion” means performing physical acts or refraining from performing physical acts motivated by a religious belief. See Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877 (1990) (“But the ‘exercise of religion’ often involves not only belief and profession but the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts.”). The physical act does not necessarily have to be imbued with inherent religious meaning, e.g., prayer. Rather, the physical act includes the entire scope of secular human activity. It runs the range of from paying Social Security taxes, to engaging in business, to purchasing health insurance, to going to school, to wearing beads and killing livestock. It also includes walking into an abortion clinic on any given day and getting an abortion on demand, a routine occurrence in most parts of the country. If the physical act—or abstention therefrom—is motivated by a religious belief, then it is the “exercise of religion.” The Amish refusal to pay Social Security taxes on religious grounds is the “exercise of religion.” United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982). The Amish refusal to have their children attend public school on religious grounds is the “exercise of religion.” Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 216 (1972). Many other secular acts are the “exercise of religion” when done for religious reasons. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) (killing chickens); Davila v. Gladden, 777 F. 3d 1198 (11th Cir. 2015) (“Davila”) (wearing beads); Merced v. Kasson, 577 F. 3d 578 (5th Cir. 2009) (killing goats). The refusal to engage in secular business practices, such as buying health insurance for contraceptives, is the “exercise of religion” when motivated by religious reasons. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., _ U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2770 (2014) (“Hobby Lobby”) (“[T]he exercise of religion involves not only belief and profession but the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts that are engaged in for religious reasons. Business practices that are compelled or limited by the tenets of a religious doctrine fall comfortably within that definition” (internal quotations and citations omitted).). The federal health insurance requirements at issue in Hobby Lobby were struck down because they compelled a business to buy employee health insurance coverage for contraceptives in violation of its owner’s religious beliefs. The Supreme Court recognized that the business owners in Hobby Lobby have the right to engage in business and buy health insurance for their employees in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs. A government requirement that business owners buy health insurance coverage for contraceptives offended their religious beliefs and therefore restricted their “exercise of religion,” in violation of the federal Restoration of Religious Freedom Act. Plaintiff has just as much right to get an abortion without government regulation that offends her religious beliefs as the Hobby Lobby owners have to buy health insurance without government regulation that offends their religious beliefs.

As I told Raw Story earlier in the month:In reply to the State’s Motion To Dismiss, attorneys for The Satanic Temple wrote:The Satanic Temple is not receiving pro bono support for their legal efforts. If you would like to contribute to their legal fund, please do so here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/...