The Satanic Temple, in the front lines against the intrusion of Christian dogmatic beliefs into public life, has won a skirmish in the fight to defend women’s rights when they challenged the state of Missouri after they passed a law that forced women seeking abortions to listen to an ultrasound. The Temple was suing the state on behalf of a member of the Temple.
Women just scored a major legislative victory, with an assist of sorts from the Prince of Darkness. On Wednesday, Missouri Solicitor General D. John Sauer determined that women are not required to receive an ultrasound in order to have an abortion in the state. The ruling follows the Satanic Temple’s decision to sue the state on the grounds that the restriction represented a violation of a woman’s personal religious beliefs.
Speaking in court regarding Missouri Statute 188.027 item number four, Sauer declared, “it’s the position of the State that an ultrasound does not have to be conducted unless a person says they want the opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat.”
In the lawsuit, the Temple describes itself thusly:
The Satanic Temple describes itself as a “non-theistic religious organization dedicated to Satanic practice and the promotion of Satanic rights.” Its followers are not Satanists, worshipping at the altar of Beelzebub, but those who “see the biblical Satan as a metaphor for rebellion against tyranny,” according to 9news.com. One of the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple is that, “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.”
The case against the rest of the Missouri law is still pending in both the Missouri state supreme court and the federal courts.
Under the informed consent law, Mary Doe was required to listen to her fetus’ heartbeat during a 72-hour waiting period prior to her abortion procedure. She also was given a booklet containing information about “the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at two-week gestational increments from conception to full term.” Printed in the booklet was a statement that read, “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”
As the case summary reveals, Doe presented a letter to the doctors at the clinic informing them 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 letter “absolved the doctors of their responsibility to deliver the booklet to her or to wait 72 hours before performing her abortion, advising them she voluntarily, freely and without coercion was choosing to have the abortion that day.”
Her letter was ignored.
Because only the religious sensibilities of Christians matter in Missouri, of course.
It’s nice to have someone illustrating how “religious freedom” laws fly in the face of “religious preference” which is what the laws’ promoters think they are getting.
As soon as we have funerals for miscarriages, I may start listening to these idiots.
Texas is way ahead of you, jk. We already passed a law like that for some miscarriages -- I just think it’s on hold awaiting some legal protest from some rational person. Ya jus’ never know about them sneeky satanic abortionists disguising there neefarrious work as miscarriages…..
Ozzy Osborne?
Eh. They’re basically trolling Christians (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing).
The biblical Satan in Job doesn’t rebel against tyranny; he serves it and panders to it.
Later exegesis identified Satan with the snake in the garden of Eden, and as rebelling against God in apocrypha such as the Book of Enoch, and this concept also made it into the Book of Revelation.
Still, the idea of a religion having empiricism, egalitarianism, civil liberties, and human rights like personal autonomy all enshrined as doctrine is an interesting idea.
Owlmirror: I suspect that the modern conception of Satan owes far more to Milton than to anything in the Bible.