Texas’ heartbeat bill has received substantial media attention as well as garnered support from certain religious organizations. The Satanic Temple, however, is not one of these organizations. The religious organization recently filed a letter with the Food and Drug Administration requesting that its members have access to abortion bills due to freedom of religion grounds.
The Role of the Heartbeat Bill
This announcement comes after the state of Texas recently passed one of the country’s most restrictive abortions laws. Under the Heartbeat Bill (Senate Bill 8), abortions that occur after six weeks of pregnancy are prohibited. This legislation was met with substantial criticism because many people do not even realize that they are pregnant at the six-week mark. This proposed legislation made its way to the United States Supreme Court recently after a group of Texas abortion clinics requested that the law be blocked. The Supreme Court permitted the law to stand but might take up the regulation at a later date.
The Argument Presented by the Satanic Temple
A statement by the Satanic Temple’s leader stated that Texas’s attorney general, who spends a substantial amount of time crafting press releases about religious liberty, will be happy to see that Texas’s Religious Liberty Laws will prevent abortion rituals from being interfered with by government restrictions.
The Satanic Temple, which is headquartered in Massachusetts, argues that its members hold bodily autonomy sacred. Furthermore, “abortion rituals” are viewed as an important element of these beliefs. The Temple has routinely argued for equality among the religious, particularly by previously installing a statue of the winged goat creatures, Baphomet, beside a Ten Commandments monument.
The Satanic Temple hopes to keep access to abortion pills by using rights granted by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. As part of the act, Native American groups are permitted to access hallucinogenic peyote during their spiritual rituals.
The Role of Religious Freedom Restoration Act Rights
In 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed. The Act prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion without application of the burden that satisfies a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering this interest. The United States Supreme Court later held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply to the states. Congress later revised the law to alter how it applied to the federal government. In the 2014 case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the court held that Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom was illegally infringed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act due to “contraceptive mandates.”
The Goal of the Universal Life Church
Each week in the United States, cases test the exact boundary of religious rights particularly when it comes to issues like abortion. The Universal Life Church’s blog focuses on documenting these matters in a way that objectively examines both sides.