Surprise! Satanic Temple Has Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs About Abortion Too

Sincerely Helled Beliefs


Surprise! Satanic Temple Has Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs About Abortion Too

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Enough Norman Rockwell, and you're damned forever

We are once again pleasantly gobsmacked by the simple brilliance of our favorite First Amendment trolls, the dead-serious activist/satirists at the Satanic Temple. If Christianists are going to insist that sincerely held religious beliefs give them an opt-out for any law, then by the Hoary Beard of Baphomet, the same should hold for Satanists, which is why the Missouri branch of the Satanic Temple is preparing to sue for the right of a Satanist lady to skip Missouri’s dumb 72-hour waiting period for an abortion.

You see, according to Damien Ba’al, head of the Satanic Temple’s St. Louis chapter, the 72-hour wait would severely restrict the rights of a Missouri woman, whom they’re identifying only as “Mary” — might as well push as many Christian buttons as possible — to practice her Satanic faith, a central tenet of which is that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” “Mary” knows full well that she wants to get a legal medical procedure, and that there is no medical reason to have to schedule two appointments, three days apart, in order to avail herself of that medical treatment. As Satanic Temple founder Lucien Greaves (civilian name: Doug Mesner) told Hemant Mehta at the Friendly Atheist blog:
As Satanists we believe in individual autonomy, personal choice, and the inviolability of one’s own body. Further, we believe one should be free to make one’s own decisions, uncoerced, based on the best available scientific evidence, whether or not the science comports with the religious and/or political views of others.

To that end, the Satanic Temple set up a GoFundMe campaign last week to raise the $800 that Mary would need for lodging and transportation to St. Louis, where the state’s last remaining abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, is located. The GoFundMe page is now removed, but reportedly met its goal in a single day; the Temple has also helped Mary with a document informing her doctor that the waiting period would violate her religious beliefs, laying out the case for immediate treatment in terms that plainly appeal to Missouri’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act”:

As you know, state law requires a waiting period after I first receive counseling before I can undergo an abortion. I regard a waiting period as a state sanctioned attempt to discourage abortion by instilling an unnecessary burden as part of the process to obtain this legal medical procedure. The waiting period interferes with the inviolability of my body and thereby imposes an unwanted and substantial burden on my sincerely held religious beliefs.

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Read more at http://wonkette.com/584567/surprise-satanic-temple-has-sincerely-held-religious-beliefs-about-abortion-too#jEZQLPUasu8UlflI.99