CV NEWS FEED // Indiana’s attorney general won a lawsuit against a group of Satanists last week after a judge ruled that the Satanists did not have standing to challenge Indiana’s pro-life legislature.
The Satanic Temple filed a lawsuit against Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Roitka in September 2022, after Dobbs v. Jackson returned abortion legislation to the state level.
Following Dobbs, Indiana became the first state in the nation to enact a law that almost entirely outlawed abortion, making exceptions for lethal fetal anomalies, life-threatening conditions of the mother, and rape or incest.
The Satanic Temple argued that the pro-life law is unconstitutional, saying that it violates a woman’s right to own property (i.e., a uterus), forces women into slavery, and discriminates between women who become pregnant by accident and women who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
The Satanic Temple also argued that the pro-life law violated Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act by interfering with women’s right to practice “the Satanic Abortion Ritual.”
However, District-Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled last week that the Satanic Temple did not have standing to file the lawsuit in the first place. According to Magnus-Stinson, the Satanic Temple did not prove any injury suffered as a result of Indiana’s pro-life legislation.
“The Satanic Temple had an opportunity to submit evidence. It had notice of its standing defects. And it was given the opportunity to cure them. It has failed on all fronts,” Magnus-Stinson wrote in her ruling.
Attorney General Todd Roitka said that the legal victory was important for Indiana’s pro-life culture in the future.“This lawsuit was ridiculous on its face, but this court decision is important because it sustains a pro-life law that is constitutionally and legally sound,” Rokita said in a press release. “We Hoosiers continue to build a solid culture of life whether satanic cultists like it or not.”
