INDIANAPOLIS (LifeSiteNews) — The Indiana Supreme Court denied a request to transfer a “religious freedom” challenge to the state’s abortion law, saying the case must continue at a trial court level.
Meanwhile, an injunction against the law for a group of women who are not currently pregnant will remain in place.
The group of women, represented by the left-wing ACLU, has sued on “religious freedom” grounds, claiming their religious beliefs purportedly may require them in some situations to kill an innocent preborn baby in their womb. But Senate Enrolled Act 1 would prohibit those abortions.
The state supreme court has previously upheld the law in general, but this group of women, none of whom are currently pregnant, are exempted from the law. The ruling means that the case will continue at a lower level.
The majority opinion summarizes the case:
The plaintiffs are a few individuals and an organization called Hoosier Jews for Choice, and they explain that they have a variety of religious beliefs that would compel them to terminate a pregnancy [by directly killing an unborn baby] in various circumstances where Indiana law would generally prohibit abortion. The record reflects that none of them are pregnant, so they don’t yet confront the circumstances they fear. And they may never confront those circumstances even if they do become pregnant because a pregnancy could occur in circumstances in which their faith does not require an abortion. But they are currently avoiding pregnancy until they can be sure the State won’t interfere with them terminating a pregnancy when consistent with their religious beliefs.
Indiana law currently prohibits abortion in most cases, although there are exceptions for rape, incest, so-called “lethal fetal anomaly,” and for alleged “health” reasons.
Most of the majority opinion consists of technical language and an analysis of when injunctions can be issued. However, a dissenting opinion, joined by two of the five justices, suggests weaknesses to the plaintiffs’ claims.
“In my view, three issues warrant review now,” Justice Geoffrey Slaughter wrote along with Justice Mark Massa.
These issues include “whether the individual plaintiffs’ claimed injuries have sufficiently matured—ripened—into a justiciable controversy since the women are not now pregnant and may never seek an abortion.”
He also asked if “Hoosier Jews for Choice,” “an organization that has not sustained any injury, can sue in its own name on behalf of members who claim injury.”
Finally, he wants to address if the trial court “correctly interpreted and applied” the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
RFRA laws, both at the state and federal level, typically say that the state must prove a “compelling government interest” when it is accused of violating someone’s religious freedom.
Government officials must also show that they used the “least restrictive means” possible.
The plaintiffs claim that they “have sincere religious beliefs that direct them to obtain an abortion under circumstances prohibited by S.E.A. 1 and who are at risk of needing an abortion in the future consistent with these beliefs even though the abortion would otherwise be prohibited by S.E.A. 1.”
However, pro-lifers stress that a baby’s inherent human dignity and right to life do not come from the circumstances of his or her conception. Direct abortion is never medically necessary, as medical experts have also attested.
A pagan plaintiff in the case argued that her anxiety over not being able to kill her own preborn baby “has resulted in a reduction in physical intimacy [with]… her husband” and this “is another form of impingement on her religious beliefs” because it makes it hard for her to feel “fully connected to and with her husband,” as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
Indiana’s law has been generally successful, at least on paper, in reducing abortions in the state. Reported abortions have dropped around 98 percent in the past year since the law fully went into effect, as recently reported by LifeSiteNews.
Babies can be aborted up to 10 weeks in Indiana if conceived in rape or incest as well as for alleged “substantial and irreversible physical impairment” of the mother’s health, according to the legislation. The law also allows for the killing of preborn babies if the baby allegedly “suffers from an irremediable medical condition that is incompatible with sustained life outside the womb up to 20 weeks.”
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