INDIANAPOLIS (LifeSiteNews) — Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita has announced he is appealing a recent ruling that the state’s abortion ban cannot be enforced against two anonymous plaintiffs because it infringes on “religious rights” to abortion.
Indiana law bans most abortions throughout pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, or “medical emergencies” in the first 10 weeks or fetal anomalies “incompatible with sustained life” up to 20 weeks. It also requires medical care for any babies who survive attempted abortions. That law has stopped the vast majority of abortions, yet they persist due to mail-order abortion pills, which the state legislature has so far been unable to quash.
Last week, Marion County Superior Court Judge Christina Klineman issued a permanent injunction against applying Indiana’s abortion ban to the plaintiffs, who asserted their “religious beliefs” in “bodily autonomy,” life not beginning until birth, and fetuses being “part of the body of the mother.” One of the suing women identified as Jewish; the other “does not belong to a specific religious tradition” but claims “personal religious and spiritual beliefs that guide her life.”
“The state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act bars a law that substantially interferes with class members’ religious beliefs that a pregnant person’s mental or physical health takes precedence over that of a zygote, embryo, or fetus,” Klineman ruled. “The abortion law would allow a plaintiff to seek an abortion if her pregnancy were the result of rape, but not if it were mandated by her religious beliefs. The state has not justified this differential treatment by establishing that its interest in the same prenatal life changes based upon the reason for terminating a pregnancy.”
The judge’s order specified that it “applies only to the certified class and named plaintiffs.”
Now, Rokita’s office has confirmed it is appealing the ruling, Indiana Public Media reports. “We disagree with the court’s decision and have already appealed,” a spokesperson declared. “As we have with every challenge against our pro-life law, we’ll continue fighting to protect the lives of the unborn.”
“We are encouraged by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s immediate move to appeal this injunction,” said Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter. “Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act was never intended to equate taking the life of an unborn child with religious expression in our state.”
While some fringe groups may concoct “religious” rationalizations of abortion by twisting Scripture, or establishing pro-abortion “religions” such as The Satanic Temple, the preborn baby – from the embryo stage onward – as a living human being is a scientific fact, not a religious belief, and equal protection of every human being’s God-given right to life is a foundational tenet of America’s constitutional system, against which no “religious” argument may take precedence.
As the direct, intentional, and avoidable killing of innocent, living human beings, abortion is directly contrary to unambiguous principles found in both the Gospels and the Old Testament shared by Christians and Jews. The Bible repeatedly condemns “murder” (Mt 19:18) and “shed[ding] innocent blood” (Ps 106:38) as “detestable to” the Lord (Prov 6:17), because “in the image of God has God made mankind” (Gen 9:6).
