Satanists Will Challenge Supreme Court Ruling Requiring Burial of Aborted Babies

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   May 29, 2019   |   6:04PM   |   Little Rock, AR

The Satanic Temple plans to challenge a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing Indiana to require that aborted babies be buried or cremated, the religious group said this week.

The group said the ruling violates its members’ religious freedom, The Hill reports.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law that requires the cremation or burial of aborted babies’ bodies. Indiana lawmakers passed the legislation in 2016 to prevent abortion facilities from profiting off of the sales of aborted baby parts.

Barely a day later, the Satanic Temple “declared immunity” against the law and announced its plans to challenge the decision, according to the Arkansas Times.

“To be clear, members of The Satanic Temple will not be made to pay for these punitive, superfluous and insulting burials,” spokesperson Lucien Greaves told the newspaper. “We claim exemption on religious liberty grounds, and we will almost certainly prevail in the courts if we are forced to fight.”

The group argued that it believes in the “inviolability of one’s body” and “non-viable fetal tissue is part of the woman who carries it”; therefore, the Indiana law violates their religious beliefs.

“State impositions of ceremonial requirements dictating its disposal, barring any plausible medical or sanitary concerns, is a violation of TST’s Free Exercise allowing Satanists to contextualize the termination of a pregnancy on their own terms, with deference to their own religious beliefs,” the group argued.

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It also claimed the law puts an “undue burden” on its members by interfering with their burial rites.

The Satanist group took a jab at pro-life Vice President Mike Pence as well, describing him as a “petty sanctimonious panderer.” Pence signed the law when he was governor of Indiana.

The Satanic Temple is well-known for attacking pro-life laws and mocking sidewalk counselors. It recently sued Missouri over the state informed consent law, claiming it trampled on “Mary Doe’s” religious rights by requiring that she undergo an ultrasound and receive information about her unborn baby’s development, abortion risks and alternatives to abortion.

The Satanists have attacked other state informed consent laws, too. In 2015, one of its leaders wrote a blog about aborting her unborn baby to attack abortion regulations in Michigan. She called her unborn baby’s abortion death “surreal.”

Outside abortion facilities, its members mock and attempt to intimidate peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors through gruesome protests. In 2016, pro-life advocates outside of a Detroit, Michigan Planned Parenthood faced a disturbing scene when a group from the Satanic Temple arrived to counter-protest wearing baby masks and carrying whips. They held a similar protest on Good Friday in 2017.

Breitbart once described the Satanic Temple’s actions as a “pro-abortion crusade to come to the aid of America’s largest abortion provider,” Planned Parenthood.