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Federal judge dismisses Satanic Temple lawsuit over Indiana abortion law

Federal judge dismisses satanic temple lawsuit over Indiana abortion law

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A federal judge in Indianapolis has dismissed a lawsuit by The Satanic Temple challenging Indiana’s near-total ban on abortions. 

Judge Jane Magnus Stinson issued her ruling Wednesday.

The Satanic Temple sued to force the state to allow it to provide mail-order drugs for its members in Indiana to have an abortion.

The suit claimed Indiana’s new abortion law, passed in 2022, violated the state’s religious freedom law as well as the Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The law makes nearly all abortions in the state illegal with exceptions for rape or incest up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, or to save the life of the mother up to 20 weeks into pregnancy.

The temple operates a telehealth clinic based in New Mexico.

The judge’s order said The Satanic Temple repeatedly failed to prove it had standing to challenge Indiana’s law.

Stinson wrote, “The Satanic Temple has failed to meet its burden to prove that there are actual or potential Indiana patients at all.”

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled in June that while the state constitution does create a woman’s right to an abortion to protect her life or health, state lawmakers also have the power to place limits on “abortions that are unnecessary to protect a woman’s life or to protect her from a serious health risk.”