The Satanic Temple said a Tuesday Supreme Court ruling for Indiana violates the Satanic Temple members’ religious liberties by requiring the burying or cremation of fetal remains.
The Salem, Massachusetts-based group said in a press release that burial of fetal remains is “punitive, superfluous, and insulting.” The Satanic Temple members said they refuse to comply with this ruling as it violates “the inviolability of one’s body” and that Satanic members “believe that nonviable fetal tissue is part of the woman who carries it.”
The response comes as the Supreme Court reinstated an Indiana law Tuesday requiring abortion clinics to cremate or bury fetal remains. The Supreme Court justices declined to review the second provision of the Indiana law banning discriminatory abortions since the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said both provisions were unlawful. Vice President Mike Pence signed these abortion bans into law as governor.
“The Satanic Temple declares its members exempt from Indiana law regarding fetal remains,” the group’s Twitter page announced Wednesday. (RELATED: Supreme Court Hears Satanic Temple Abortion Case In Missouri)
The Satanic Temple declares its members exempt from Indiana law regarding fetal remains pic.twitter.com/nPDvl1W6xv
— The Satanic Temple (@satanic_temple_) May 29, 2019
“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 added.
“This law clearly places an undue burden on the religious practices of the Satanic Temple by interfering with burial rites,” Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves told Fox News.
“To be clear, members of the Satanic Temple will not be made to pay for these punitive, superfluous and insulting burials,” Greaves added. “We claim exemption on religious-liberty grounds, and we will almost certainly prevail in the courts if we are forced to fight.”
The Satanic Temple has publicly allied with Planned Parenthood and taken pro-choice stances in the past. The group allied with Planned Parenthood in Missouri in 2017, again using the argument of religious liberty to protest against abortion restrictions. The groups protested a Missouri law requiring women seeking abortions to read pro-life literature and to wait 72 hours before aborting their unborn babies.
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