Claiming that ending the life of a first trimester unborn baby is a religious right for their members, the Satanic Temple has issued a press release demanding that religious freedom protections exempt them from all state restrictions on abortion.
“[T]he Satanic abortion ritual provides spiritual comfort and affirms bodily autonomy, self-worth, and freedom from coercive forces with the affirmation of TST’s Seven Tenets.”
The ritual is practiced when the individual stares at themselves in a mirror during the moments immediately preceding an abortion, and recites one of the Satanic Temple’s “tenets” that a person’s body is “subject to one’s own will alone,” that “beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world,” and that a person should never “distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”
Specifically, the Satanic Temple claims exemptions from all state mandated waiting periods, counseling, reading materials, sonograms, burial or cremation of fetal remains, and any requirement to listen to an unborn baby’s heartbeat.