Satanic Temple has no standing to fight Indiana abortion ban: appeals court

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling against the Satanic Temple, which had launched a lawsuit against Indiana over its abortion law that bans abortions outside of hospitals, as well as blocking telehealth access to the procedure. The lower court had ruled that the Satanic Temple, which argued that the law violated Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, does not have standing to sue. 

Biden-appointed Judge Doris Pryor wrote for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that the Satanic Temple, a Massachusetts non-profit, maintains a telehealth abortion clinic in New Mexico to further the following of the non-profit’s Tenets among its members so they can perform the "Satanic Abortion Ritual." That telehealth clinic only serves patients who are physically in New Mexico, have a New Mexico mailing address, and take the drugs in New Mexico. 

"The Satanic Temple does not operate a licensed abortion clinic in Indiana, and it does not intend to start an in-person abortion clinic in Indiana either. Nor does it have ties to a hospital or surgical center within the state to perform abortions in adherence with the laws of Indiana. But the Satanic Temple does seek to extend its telehealth services to Indiana," Pryor wrote. 

The Satanic Temple sued over Indiana’s law, seeking to block Indiana officials from enforcing the law "against anyone who provides an abortion to an involuntarily pregnant woman, which it defines as a member of the Satanic Temple residing in Indiana who became pregnant without her consent because of the legal inability to consent to sex or the failure of her birth control, or itself."

The district court had ruled that the Satanic Temple lacked standing to sue, finding that it "did not have associational standing on behalf of its members because it failed to identify an injury specific to an identified member and rather sought to establish associational standing utilizing 'speculation through statistics.’ The court concluded that without identifying an injured member, the Satanic Temple did not have associational standing."

Pryor noted that organizations can sue on behalf of its members through "associational standing," in which the organization must show "(1) at least one of its members would 'have standing to sue in their own right'; (2) 'the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose'; and (3) 'neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members.'"

The Satanic Temple claimed to have associational standing. Pryor wrote, "The Satanic Temple contends its members have suffered two types of harm. First, it argues there is a statistical probability that it has members who are involuntarily pregnant in Indiana. Second, it claims all of its members have suffered a stigmatic injury."

On the first claim, Pryor wrote that instead of identifying an individual member who has suffered an injury due to the law, the Satanic Temple used "statistical probability to show it has some unnamed members who might be injured." An obstetrics and gynecological osteopath claimed that it was "reasonably likely that 94 of the Satanic Temple’s 11,300 members located within the state of Indiana could become involuntarily pregnant during the course of a year and that it is reasonably likely that there is at least one involuntarily pregnant woman in Indiana at any given time." No specific member was identified. 

The Satanic Temple had also argued that it has a First Amendment right not to name an affected member to establish standing, however, Pryor wrote, "we need not decide that issue today either because the Satanic Temple’s associational standing argument on this score suffers from a separate fatal flaw."

On the second claim of members suffering stigmatic injuries, the Satanic Temple had argued that the abortion law caused its members to "suffer the stigma of being evil people because they do not believe a human being comes into existence at conception nor do they believe abortion is homicide." Pryor wrote, "other than merely saying so, the Satanic Temple provides no evidence that its members have actually suffered stigmatic injury."

Pryor also wrote that the Satanic Temple also wrote that it had standing to challenge the law "because of the threat of prosecution if it decides to provide abortion-inducing drugs through telehealth medical appointments in Indiana." Pryor later added, "The Satanic Temple argues the threat of prosecution under § 16-34-2-7(a) 'if' it prescribes abortifacients via telehealth appointments in Indiana is enough to show an injury to support its pre-enforcement challenge. There is no evidence, however, that the Satanic Temple will knowingly or intentionally prescribe abortifacients in violation of § 16-34-2-1 to face the prospect of prosecution."

"All of this taken together demonstrates that the Satanic Temple lacks standing to sue, and we do not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear its claims."

Satanic Temple v Indiana Officials by Hannah Nightingale