STATEWIDE — Indiana’s Senate Bill 1, also known as the abortion ban bill, is now the target of a third lawsuit.
The first lawsuit filed in response to the General Assembly’s passage of Senate Bill 1 was a collective effort from names you may know, like Planned Parenthood. The second lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Indiana. The third lawsuit comes from the Satanic Temple.
The Satanic Temple, based out of Salem, Massachusetts, has over 11,000 members in Indiana and over one million in total. The Temple says the state’s abortion ban bill violates the U.S. Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the beliefs established in the Satanic Temple itself.
The Temple says it does not worship your traditional idea of Satan, rather a Satan from a poem called Paradise Lost. According to the lawsuit, the Satanic Temple’s beliefs are based on personal sovereignty, which they claim is being infringed by the state of Indiana.
Court documents say the Temple’s beliefs protect women who become involuntarily pregnant – i.e. rape or the failing of birth control.
The Satanic Temple went into further detail, stating the passage of Senate Bill 1 would allow the criminalization of women who perform the temple’s “Satanic Abortion Ritual”, which is the actual abortion itself, plus the repetition of stating out-loud the “tenants” of the temple’s beliefs. You can find those below:
“A. Tenet I -One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
B. Tenet II – The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should
prevail over laws and institutions.
C. Tenet III – One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
D. Tenet IV – The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to
offend. To encroach upon the freedoms of another willfully and unjustly is to forgo
one’s own.
E. Tenet V – 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.
F. Tenet VI – People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to
rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
G. Tenet VII – Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action
and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over
the written or spoken word”
Senate Bill 1 is currently on hold, due to an injunction placed by a Monroe County judge last week.
