WATCH: Satanic Temple Was Already Prepared To Take On Texas Abortion Law
The Satanic Temple has promised to stand up to Texas and help protect access to safe, legal abortions. They’ve invited members of their faith who seek abortions to reach out to them, and they’ve been described as potentially a “last chance” to fight the oppressive and far-reaching law. But they didn’t just start this with Texas.
If the Satanic Temple gets an opportunity to fight this law in court — arguing religious freedom for a member who is denied access to a potentially life-saving medical treatment — they’ll have a long history of upholding abortion access as a tenet of their faith to back it up.
In this 2020 video, the Satanic Temple even lays out how they consider access to abortion — without being subjected to waiting periods, medically unnecessary ultrasounds, or anti-choice propaganda — is actually a religious ritual, which their members should not be prevented from performing as needed, as a matter of religious freedom.
At the time, they were fighting against obstacles put into place to make abortions more difficult to access, and promised that any members who sought an abortion would be given a letter to take to their medical provider, explaining how these hurdles meet the standard of “undue burden” under religious freedom laws.
Now, Fortune has described the group as possibly the “last hope” in fighting the abortion law in Texas, as they cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, saying that under this law, members holding a sincere belief in abortion as a human right should have access to abortifacients for their religious rituals.
TST stands ready to assist any member who shares our deeply-held religious convictions regarding the right to reproductive freedom. Accordingly, we encourage any member who resides in TX and wishes to undergo the Satanic Abortion Ritual within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy(1/3)
— The Satanic Temple (@satanic_temple_) September 3, 2021
Instead, SB8 is cynically designed to avoid judicial review of the law and creates enforcement mechanisms against TST and its lawyers who dare challenge the law. We will not be cowed into silence by an unjust law or a tyrannical state government. (3/3)
— The Satanic Temple (@satanic_temple_) September 3, 2021
The Satanic Temple has an excellent fact sheet here on their work to protect abortion access, including a PDF of the letter for refusing medically unnecessary procedures prior to an abortion, and a donation link to support their mission.