This Tuesday, The Satanic Temple will be arguing their case in front of the Missouri Supreme Court after convincing an appeals court that the state’s mandatory 72-hour waiting period before having an abortion violates their religious freedom.
The Temple is taking up the case of a member they refer to as “Mary Doe,” who claims the law goes against her religious beliefs. The woman contends that back in May of 2015, she was forced to view an ultrasound of her fetus and required to read a booklet that stated life “begins at conception.”
All of this was forced upon her despite the fact that she “adheres to principles of the Satanic temple and has sincerely held religious beliefs different from the information in the informed consent booklet,” according to her case summary.
“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,” the case summary stated according to NBC News.
The Satanic Temple’s Jex Blackmore says Mary Doe’s religious freedom is being trampled upon.
“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.”
“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,” his statement continued. “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.”
Although the state disagreed with the Temple’s assessment, a Missouri appeals court found merit in the Temple’s argument and agreed to let the case go the Missouri Supreme Court and even commented on the urgency of the case’s constitutional implications.
*starts handing out bags of popcorn* Oooooh, this gonna eat up the pro-lifers…
Satanists hold the line
There was an update:
Update, 1/25/18: A local CBS affiliate is reporting that the Temple has prevailed in its showdown with the state of Missouri over its abortion restrictions.
According to 9News, Missouri’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer declared ultrasounds are not required to obtain an abortion in the state.
Read it here.
Guys, the Satanists won.
Eyyyyy!!!
Hail Satan!
It is so rare that I can look at a court case involving “religious freedom” and agree that it is, in fact, a genuine religious freedom question, because it involves personal actions and choices rather than being a thinly-veiled excuse to try to impose one’s religious beliefs on other people.
And the thing is, they’re right. The “informed consent” booklet’s claims contradict a lot of widely held religious beliefs, and are not meaningfully scientific claims.
Okay, so I’m going to have to disagree real hard with the last phrase of that last sentence. Everything else, I mean, sure, kinda. There are more nuanced points I would want to argue, but in general, sure.
To say that “informed consent” about “life begins at conception” are “not meaningfully scientific claims” though - now that I take issue with. First and foremost, you are making some MAJOR assumptions here - and to be frank, you have so many options that I’m not entirely sure which assumptions you’re making and which ones you’re not.
The scientific community is NOT entirely agreed on what the definition of life is (mostly because viruses are weird). We have some answers, but it’s an ongoing debate. I’m not going to get into that because it’s a whole can of worms and I am not qualified to give an “answer” if there is one (but hey, that’s what science is, is the journey towards that answer, eventually). BBC has a pretty interesting article on it here : http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170101-there-are-over-100-definitions-for-life-and-all-are-wrong
If you Google “life definition”, you get this for the first definition:
the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death
Biology-online.org says
a distinctive characteristic of a living organism from dead organism or non-living thing, as specifically distinguished by the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond (to stimuli), adapt, and reproduce
So let’s look at these qualities - and remember, it’s the capacity for these things.
growth - CHECK. This is pretty much all they do from conception, is grow.
reproduce - CHECK. This sounds kinda weird, but it’s capacity for, so if we’re going to count babies and infertile people as living, this sort of is a no-brainer. If the fetus is let alone to mature, it will be able to reproduce.
functional activity/respond to stimuli - CHECK. Those things have heartbeats. They respond to their environment. Not sure what else is needed on that point.
metabolize - CHECK. They take in nutrients and grow and change. You can argue that they’re parasitical right now, sure, but they do metabolize.
adapt/continual change - CHECK. Some of this is the woman’s body, but it’s also the fetus and that entire system.
Obviously I’m simplifying this a lot, but by the most general of standards, scientifically speaking, uh, they’re alive. You may not consider them a “worthy” life-form, and if a mother said, “I want to take out this parasitic life-form and kill it” I suppose it would be scientifically accurate, and we can argue beliefs and personal decisions all day, but to argue that it’s saying it is alive is not a meaningful scientific claim is just flat out wrong.
