Interview
Friend of Satan: how Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple are fighting the religious right

Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves: ‘Right now we have a minority, religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want.’ 

They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortion

Adam Gabbatt
@adamgabbattWed 4 Jan 2023 

A statue of Baphomet – a pagan idol used in popular culture as a representation of the devil, with the head, horns and feet of a goat, the torso of a man and the wings of an angel – is the centrepiece of the Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.

More than 8ft (2.4 metres) tall, jet black and altogether unnerving, Baphomet serves as a reminder of what brought the Satanic Temple to fame. In 2013, the group, which is acknowledged as a religion by the US government, responded to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol building – seemingly a flagrant abuse of the US constitution’s separation of church and state – by demanding that its own Baphomet statue also be positioned in the grounds. According to the first amendment, which protects freedom of religion, public spaces should be open to all religions or none, it argued.

It turned out that Republican politicians did not want a big statue of a goat-headed pagan deity on capitol grounds. Amid lawsuits, the Oklahoma supreme court eventually ordered that the Ten Commandments monument should be removed.

The tactic, with its wry and anarchic undertones, is typical of the Satanic Temple’s battle against the religious right in the US. In the decade since the spat over the statue, the Temple has tackled prayer in classrooms, religious holiday displays and the distribution of Bibles in schools.

Now, it is taking on another fundamental issue: the right to abortion.

The overturning of Roe v Wade last June opened the door for more than half of US states to effectively ban abortion or restrict access to it, horrifying supporters of reproductive rights. The Satanic Temple – and many other observers – believe the decision of the supreme court was made on the basis of religion: specifically the extreme form of Christianity that has come to dominate Republican politics in the US.

The Temple has “seven fundamental tenets”, one of which states: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” This, it believes, offers a way around these draconian new laws. It is arguing that its members are exempt from bans or restrictions on abortion, due to their right to a “Satanic Temple religious abortion ritual”, more of which later. With lawsuits already filed in Indiana, Idaho, Texas and Missouri, the Satanic Temple is about to find out whether US courts agree.

Lucien Greaves in Hail Satan?, a documentary about the Satanic Temple. 

Photograph: Magnolia Pictures

Legal battles are long-running, expensive and frustrating for people desperate for immediate change. But Lucien Greaves, who co-founded the Satanic Temple in 2012, points to the success the Republican party has had in overturning Roe v Wade – a decision brought before the court through decades of lobbying and legislating.


“I get messages from people denigrating us for taking legal action to assert our rights, saying: ‘You can’t change the system from within the system,’” Greaves says.

“And I keep asking them: ‘What the fuck do you think you just saw happen? That’s what they just did.’”

Tall, slim, pale and dressed in black, Greaves is a fitting frontman for a group that is regularly demonised by its Christian opponents. A leather strap wrapped around his wrist, his thin blond ponytail tied up with black bands, he could be in one of the heavy metal bands that terrified neurotic parents in the 1980s and 90s.

“We have to play the long game,” Greaves says. “They spent generations doing this.”

Satanists don’t believe in Satan in a literal, demonic sense, Greaves explains, but rather as a symbol of rebellion and opposition to authoritarianism. According to the Satanic Temple’s website: “To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”


The Satanic Temple held its first public activity in January 2013, and a decade on it has more than 700,000 members, with congregations in 24 states and six countries, including the UK, Germany and Finland.

The Satanic Temple stands out among Salem’s traditional cream or white-painted buildings. 

The organisation is recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service as a “church or a convention or association of churches” and, as such, it is able to highlight, and attempt to tackle, the disparity in how Christianity is treated compared with other religious groups in the US.

“Right now, we have a minority religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want,” Greaves says. “Now they’ve got the courts on their side and everything – and they don’t need to bend to the will of the majority.”

He is speaking to the Guardian at the Satanic Temple’s headquarters, a three-storey former funeral parlour ringed by neatly trimmed lawns and topiary. The building is not hard to spot. In a residential area where most of the traditional, clapboard homes are cream or white, it is painted black.

The interior matches the gothic exterior. The walls are covered with dark, velvety wallpaper, and daylight is shut out by floor-length crimson curtains. Baphomet lurks in one room, ready to be summoned once more. A gift shop sells “Friend of Satan” mugs, “Hail Satan” T-shirts, and “Satanic Temple official hot sauce”, which comes in four flavours and costs $12 (£10) a bottle. Upstairs, a chandelier-lit throne room features grand mahogany chairs flanked by Norse helmets. The space is also available as a wedding venue, and newlyweds can spend the night in a vampiric-looking bedroom suite.

The statue of Baphomet is now housed in the Satanic Temple. 

Greaves, who uses a pseudonym as a result of threats, somewhat reluctantly became the Satanic Temple’s spokesperson in 2013, the year after it was founded. The organisation quickly became known for its anarchic activities. That same year, it praised the governor of Florida for having signed a bill allowing students to lead prayer at school assemblies. The decision, the Temple said, was exciting – “because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school”. Faced with the threat of litigation from civil rights organisations, it is unclear if any school districts ever took up the student-led prayer option.

That same year, the group held a mocking “pink mass” to protest against the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, and specifically its founder, Fred Phelps. The mass featured two men kissing over the grave of Phelps’ mother.

In 2016, in response to hundreds of schools hosting after-class Bible study groups (mostly promoted by the Good News Club, a weekly Christian programme for children), the group announced it would offer its own after-school Satan clubs. The clubs, which are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development”, are still around: last year there was much purse-clutching when a school in Ohio gave the go-ahead for an After School Satan club.

In recent years, though, the Temple has moved beyond physical stunts, and into the courtroom, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal efforts to secure abortion rights, ensure the right to free speech and protect children from abuse.

The gallery space at the Satanic Temple.

“It’s getting really frustrating now with the overturn of Roe v Wade, when people are still treating us not like we’re a minority religion – which we are – but more like, we’re just this kind of clever tactic that may or may not work,” Greaves says.

“That gets to be really tedious, because I think people aren’t terribly invested in the outcomes of the Satanic Temple’s lawsuits. And it shows that they don’t understand that the outcomes of what the Satanic Temple is doing have ramifications for everybody: all minority religious organisations, all different types of viewpoint positions that might be outside the Christian nationalist perspective.”

In recent years, Republicans have ushered in a wave of discriminatory, pro-Christian legislation in states across the country. Conservatives have targeted LGBTQ+ people, in particular, with efforts to prevent transgender people using certain bathrooms, and to prevent LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children. Many of these bills are lifted from model legislation drafted by Christian lobbying organisations under an effort known as “Project Blitz”.

It is this religious crusade that ultimately resulted in the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturning Roe v Wade, with its Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which held that the constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion.

Inside the Satanic Temple. 

That is where the Satanic Temple is hoping to find some leeway. It has insisted that its members do have a religious right to receive abortions, as part of its “Satanic abortion ritual”. The Temple’s “fundamental tenet” that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” is a position that contradicts people being denied the right to end a pregnancy.


During the ritual, the person having the abortion looks at their reflection, before taking deep breaths and reciting two of the seven tenets. Once the abortion is complete, the person must recite the “personal affirmation”: “By my body, my blood, by my will, it is done.” The ritual is conceived to serve an “affirmative function of assuring membership that their decision is their own”, the group says, while also offering a kind of counselling effect.

Once someone determines they want to undergo the abortion ritual, the Satanic Temple believes that the state has no right to intervene in what is essentially a religious practice.

“States are passing laws premised on this idea that foetal tissue has personhood, or is a unique and distinct human life. We don’t agree with that position. We believe it’s a religious position, and we don’t believe states have any right to put any impositions on us,” Greaves says.

Opinion polls, and results such as last August’s Kansas ballot – in which a majority voted in favour of keeping abortion legal in the state – show that most Americans think abortion should be legal, and the Roe v Wade decision sparked protests across the country. This might have buoyed those involved, but Greaves – speaking in a personal capacity, rather than on behalf of the Satanic Temple – thinks it is unlikely to change the opinions of rightwing politicians and courts.

“You’re not going to wave signs now and shame the Republicans into acting rationally,” he says.

The documentary Hail Satan?, released in 2019, helped increase the Temple’s popularity and membership, but exposure has also brought problems.

In June, the Satanic Temple headquarters was subject to an arson attack . A man wearing a T-shirt that read “God” walked up to the front porch, poured an unknown accelerant over it, then set it on fire. The Satanic Temple’s door cam recorded the whole thing. A man was arrested the same night, and has been charged with arson, destruction of a place of worship and civil rights violation charges. If he was genuinely trying to burn down the building, it was a lamentable effort, but the incident was a reminder of the risks the Satanic Temple faces. As the organisation’s visible figurehead, Greaves is particularly – and literally – in the line of fire.

“I honestly felt like I was committing suicide at the point where I was being the public face of satanism, because I’ve seen people’s lives totally ruined on accusations of satanism,” he says.

Lucien Greaves at the Satanic Temple.

Greaves recently came to the attention of the Sovereign Citizens, a loose group of Americans who do not believe they are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and are not subject to US law. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement is “rooted in racism and antisemitism” and “some sovereign citizens have turned to violence”.

In late 2021, Greaves received a message from the group that informed him he was to be deported from the US.

After finding a Zoom link for a Sovereign Citizens assembly meeting, Greaves gatecrashed it, and managed to derail the meeting almost immediately by taking on a chairman role and calling it to order. “I suppose you’re all wondering why I gathered you here today,” Greaves said, before being told to “Shut your damn mouth,” by a Sovereign Citizen.

Greaves was eventually ejected from the meeting, which bore all the professionalism of a parish council get-together. Soon after, he says, a $100,000 bounty was placed on his head. A notice on the American Herald news site stated Greaves was wanted “dead or alive”, and called him “a domestic and international terrorist”.

People who post death threats in plain sight could seem like harmless cranks, but Greaves points out that plenty of violence has been committed in the name of quackery: “I don’t know how to distinguish what is more and less serious unless somebody actually comes in and does something.” If a person does attack him, Greaves says: “It’s gonna be someone this dumb.”

He is forced to take precautions nowadays. Last year he moved – “very secretly”, he says – and he tries to keep personal details as personal as possible. But he and his fellow satanists are undeterred. The Satanic Temple will keep chipping away at the inroads the Christian right have made. This religion, one of the most curious churches in a country full of them, is in it for the long haul.

“We have a lot of work to do to bring shit back to a reasonable level. And we’re not close to that right now,” Greaves says.

“It’s going to take many years to undo the damage that has been done. But that’s the opposite of an excuse to give up. There’s no excuse to not be engaged right now.”

Photograph: Tony Luong/The Guardian

REAL LIBERTARIANS

Satanic Temple suing Indiana over state’s near-total abortion ban



Matt Christy
Mon, September 26, 2022 

INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) — The Satanic Temple is challenging Indiana’s near-total abortion ban with a lawsuit that takes aim at Senate Enrolled Act 1 and claims the ban infringes on their followers’ religious rights and violates the U.S. Constitution.

GOP Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and state Attorney General Todd Rokita are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The Satanic Temple — based out of Salem, Mass. — boasts 1.5 million members worldwide, including 11,300 members in Indiana.

Despite often being confused with the Church of Satan or Satan worship, the Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in or worship the Biblical Satan. Instead, it venerates “the allegorical Satan described in the epic poem Paradise Lost — the defender of personal sovereignty against the dictates of religious authority.”

The Satanic Temple lists its mission as encouraging benevolence and empathy, rejecting tyrannical authority, advocating practical common sense, opposing injustice and undertaking noble pursuits. The temple is well-known for fighting for equal access to religious rights and challenging institutions that install laws or practices that only adhere to a singular religious belief — most notably Christianity.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 21, states that a female member of the Satanic Temple who resides in Indiana is being denied the right to exercise her religious beliefs by being denied access to an abortion under the new Indiana abortion ban. The woman became pregnant “without her consent,” according to the lawsuit, and gave the reason for this involuntary pregnancy as the legal inability of the woman to consent to sex (other than rape or incest) along with the failure of birth control.

Tenet III of the Satanic Temple states, “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” Under this tenet, the temple said the fetal tissue carried in the woman’s uterus is not seen as an “unborn child,” as Indiana Code states. Instead, from conception to viability, the fetal tissue is not believed to be imbued with any humanity or existence separate and apart from that of the pregnant woman herself.

The lawsuit also notes Tenet V, which states that “beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world.” Under this tenet, the lawsuit points out that early stages of fertilization, such as the creation of the zygote, are referred to as being an “unborn child” in the Indiana abortion ban. But through Tenet V, or through a scientific understanding, members of the Satanic Temple do not see a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or nonviable fetus as an “unborn child.” These cells are seen as part of a woman’s body and not imbued with existence, humanity, or spiritual life; the lawsuit explains.

Under the two tenets previously explained, the lawsuit states that members of the Satanic Temple have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy as an exercise of their religious beliefs. By Indiana criminalizing abortion, these members are being denied their religious rights which violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the lawsuit argues.

The lawsuit in total lists five counts against the near-total abortion ban in Indiana including calling it a violation of the Thirteen Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. By forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, the suit argues women are being put “into a condition of involuntary servitude.”

Read the full lawsuit below.
SatanicTempleLawsuitDownload

The Satanic Temple members are not the first to challenge Indiana’s near-total abortion ban. A Monroe County special judge recently blocked the ban from being enforced after a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Indiana and a group of abortion providers challenged the new law, which went into effect on Sept. 15.

The judge’s injunction means the state reverts to the previous abortion law, which allows up to 20 weeks.

In her ruling, Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon indicated that there are several issues that still must be decided before the law can be enforced. Hanlon found some arguments from the plaintiffs strong in their merits and conceded that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case shook the “analytical landscape” of federal questions surrounding abortion.

Indiana courts are not, however, bound by that interpretation of the law when it comes to the state’s constitution, which has at times been interpreted to “give greater protection to the individual liberties of Hoosiers.”

Hanlon acknowledged that the state had an interest in regulating abortion “so long as that regulation is not in violation of the Indiana Constitution.”

The Satanic Temple takes aim at Idaho, Indiana abortion bans

The Salem, Massachusetts-based group contends that the abortion bans infringe on the rights of members who may want to practice the temple's 'abortion ritual.'

One of the flags for sale on The Satanic Temple website, labeled "Stars Stripes and TST." Image via The Satanic Temple

October 6, 2022

By 

Rebecca Boone

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Religious organizations have long been involved in the debate over Idaho’s strict abortion laws, with Catholic priests, evangelical Christian groups and others frequently lobbying lawmakers and filing legal briefs in support of abortion bans.

Now The Satanic Temple is also weighing in. The Salem, Massachusetts-based group, which doesn’t believe in a literal Satan but describes itself as a ” non-theistic religious organization,” sued Idaho in federal court late last week contending that the state’s abortion bans infringe on the rights of members who may want to practice the temple’s “abortion ritual.”

“Our members hold a sincere religious belief that they can and should have an abortion,” in cases of unwanted pregnancies, W. James Mac Naughton, the attorney representing The Satanic Temple, said in a phone interview Wednesday. The organization filed similar lawsuits in Indiana last month and in Texas last year, and Mac Naughton said he wouldn’t rule out filing additional lawsuits in other states.

Forcing people to abide by one religious belief — that life begins at conception — and denying them the right to practice a different one — that everyone has the right to control their own body — violates religious freedom, he said.

“Abortion is a tricky enough issue as it is, but it just gets all inextricably intertwined with religious beliefs,” Mac Naughton said.

The Satanic Temple, dubbed TST in the lawsuit, is separate from the Church of Satan, which was founded in the 1960s. Founded in 2013, the Satanic Temple advocates for secularism and considers Satan a literary figure who serves as a metaphor for defending personal sovereignty against religious authority.

The Satanic Temple’s religious tenets include beliefs that people should have control over their own bodies, that the freedoms of others should be respected, and that scientific facts shouldn’t be distorted to fit personal beliefs.

The organization also has something it calls a “Satanic abortion ritual,” that includes the process of a person reminding themselves that their body is inviolate, undergoing the abortion and then reciting a personal affirmation.

In the lawsuit, the organization says some of its members in Idaho are “involuntarily pregnant women.” Each woman has a property right to her own uterus, the organization said, and that right — including the ability to remove a “protected unborn child” from the uterus — can’t be legally taken by the state without compensation.

The temple also contends that Idaho subjects involuntarily pregnant women to involuntary servitude by forcing them to provide an embryo or fetus with oxygen, nutrients, antibodies, body heat and other services, during gestation. Finally, the organization claims the state wrongly discriminates against many pregnant people by only allowing abortion for those who were subjected to rape or incest, and not allowing it for people who became pregnant accidentally.

The Idaho Attorney General’s spokesman Scott Graf declined to comment on the lawsuit because the office has a policy against commenting on pending litigation.

At least 21 states including Idaho, Indiana and Florida have enacted laws barring undo government interference in religious freedom, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The laws are not identical, but they frequently state that governments cannot interfere with an individual’s ability to exercise religious freedom without a compelling government interest. When there is a compelling reason, the interference with the person’s religious freedom must be carried out in the least restrictive way.

Spiritual beliefs surrounding abortion and other reproductive health issues are often nuanced, however, even within individual religious groups. The ACLU also sued in Indiana last month, saying the abortion ban violates Jewish theological teachings as well as theology allowing abortions in some circumstances by Islamic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Pagan faiths.

In June, a synagogue sued over Florida’s law banning many abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation, saying the law prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion.

Indiana's appeals court hears arguments challenging abortion ban under a state religious freedom law


ISABELLA VOLMERT
Wed, 6 December 2023 

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's Court of Appeals questioned attorneys this week on exceptions to the state's abortion ban in a case involving residents who are suing on grounds that it violates a state religious freedom law.

The class action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of five anonymous residents and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice, argues Indiana’s abortion ban violates the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was approved by Republican lawmakers in 2015.

The suit was originally filed in September 2022 and a county judge sided with the residents last December.

Indiana later appealed the decision. The court heard arguments Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse, but did not indicate when it would rule on the appeal.

The lawsuit argues the ban violates Jewish teachings that “a fetus attains the status of a living person only at birth” and that “Jewish law stresses the necessity of protecting the life and physical and mental health of the mother prior to birth as the fetus is not yet deemed to be a person.” It also cites theological teachings allowing abortion in at least some circumstances by Islamic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Pagan faiths.

Solicitor General James Barta argued in court that the ban does not violate the law because “the unborn are persons entitled to protections." Three judges hearing arguments peppered him with questions about current exemptions to the abortion ban, including in limited cases of rape and incest.

“Aren't religious beliefs just as important as those concerns?” Judge Leanna K. Weissmann asked.

The judges also questioned ACLU of Indiana’s legal director Ken Falk about the state Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to uphold the ban. Falk said at least some of the residents have changed their sexual practices because of the ban despite of their religion's teaching on abortion.

A spokesperson for the Indiana Attorney General’s office said in a written statement it looks forward to the court’s ruling. “We once again stood up for the rights of the most vulnerable today,” the statement said.

The suit is one of many across the country wherein religious freedom is cited as a reason to overturn a state's abortion ban, including one in Missouri and one in Kentucky.

In the Missouri case, 13 Christian, Jewish and Unitarian leaders are seeking a permanent injunction barring the state’s abortion ban. The lawyers for the plaintiffs said at a court hearing state lawmakers intended to “impose their religious beliefs on everyone” in the state.

The lawsuit will likely to go to the state Supreme Court. Indiana’s near total abortion ban went into effect in August after the Indiana Supreme Court upheld it in the face of a separate legal challenge from the ACLU.

The ACLU of Indiana revamped its efforts impede the ban in November. In a separate and amended complaint, abortion providers are seeking a preliminary injunction on the ban in order to expand its medical exemptions and block the requirement that abortions be performed at a hospital.

Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The near total ban makes exceptions for abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest and to protect the life and physical health of the mother or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

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IF ATHEISTS HAD A RELIGION...

‘After School Satan Club’ at California elementary school stirs controversy

After School Satan Clubs are sponsored by The Satanic Temple, a nontheistic religious organization based in Salem, Massachusetts, that pushes for the separation of church and state.

The Satanic Temple After School Satan Club logo. Image courtesy of TST

November 22, 2022

By 

Alejandra Molina

(RNS) — An “After School Satan Club” aiming to teach students about inquiry and rationalism is set to begin in early December at a California elementary school, triggering controversy among parents and guardians who say the club shouldn’t be allowed, according to local news reports.

After School Satan Clubs are sponsored by The Satanic Temple, a nontheistic religious organization based in Salem, Massachusetts, that pushes for the separation of church and state. They meet at select public schools where other religious clubs meet, such as the Good News Club — an after-school program hosted by the Child Evangelism Fellowship to “bring the Gospel of Christ to children.” 

The Satanic Temple, which is separate from the Church of Satan, was founded in 2013. It does not worship Satan and its tenets declare that the freedoms of others should be respected, that people should have control over their own bodies and that scientific facts shouldn’t be distorted to fit one’s beliefs.

The After School Satan Club is to launch Dec. 5 at Golden Hills Elementary School in Tehachapi, a city in Kern County about 115 miles north of Los Angeles, said June Everett, an After School Satan Club campaign director. After School Satan Clubs are set up at the request of local parents, educators or other community members, according to the Satanic Temple website. Everett said a parent reached out a few months ago requesting the club, which will gather once a month through May 2023.

“The fact that others find our club controversial when they have absolutely no issues with the other religious clubs operating in their public school is puzzling to us,” said Everett, an ordained minister with The Satanic Temple.

Tehachapi Unified School District Superintendent Stacey Larson-Everson, in a Nov. 15 letter obtained by The Bakersfield Californian, announced the district had approved the After School Satan Club to host gatherings after school hours in the elementary school’s cafeteria.

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RELATED: No, they do not worship the devil, and other myths dispelled in new book on satanism

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By law, Larson-Everson said, the district can’t discriminate among groups wishing to use its facilities or distribute flyers “based on viewpoint.” The superintendent noted that religious groups are among those the district has allowed to rent its facilities over the years.

The 2001 Supreme Court ruling Good News Club v. Milford Central School paved the way for After School Satan Clubs to exist in public schools. The High Court ruled that schools cannot discriminate against religious organizations offering a club on its facilities.

Sheila Knight, grandparent to a fifth grader at Golden Hills, told Bakersfield CBS affiliate KBAK that the After School Satan Club is “disgusting.”

“I understand the school by law has to allow them because they allow other after school programs such as the Good News … but I can’t imagine why anyone would want their child to attend,” she told KBAK.

“Just the name alone, ’Satanic Temple,’ is negative and these elementary kids don’t need that,” another woman told the news agency.

Additionally, Tehachapi News reported that news of the club had generated so much controversy on social media that administrators of the Tehachapi Raves and Rants Facebook group shut down comments at least once “so they could sleep.” The administrator of the Tehachapi Ask Facebook group decided to remove comments about the topic, the news site reported.

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RELATED: The Satanic Temple takes aim at Idaho, Indiana abortion bans

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Paul Hicks, identified as a volunteer with the After School Satan Club, told KBAK that Christian-based clubs such as the Good News Club are a main reason the After School Satan Club is necessary. “We want to give an alternative point of view,” he said.

“I’m not teaching these kids that they need to hail Satan or identify as Satanists. What we’re doing is we’re thinking critical thinking, we’re teaching science, we’re teaching empathy,” Hicks said.

According to Everett, there are two active After School Satan Clubs in the country, one in Moline, Illinois, and another in Lebanon, Ohio. One such club is launching Nov. 28 in Wilmington, Ohio. Three clubs are pending approval in Eaton, Ohio; Chesapeake, Virginia; and and Endwell, New York.

The Satanic Temple said it uses the word “Satan” in the name of the club because “Satan, to us, is not a supernatural being.

“Instead, Satan is a literary figure that represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny over the human mind and spirit,” it states on its website.

The presence of evangelical after-school clubs “not only established a precedent for which school districts must now accept Satanic groups, but the evangelical after school clubs have created the need for Satanic after school clubs to offer a contrasting balance to student’s extracurricular activities,” according to the Satanic Temple.

'We need to turn this around': About 1,500 turn out for VP speech on abortion in Tallahassee


Douglas Soule and Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023 

TALLAHASSEE — Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris gave her Tallahassee speech on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday, hundreds of people stood in the rain, waiting in line.

Some of them traveled a long way to be there. They told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that they were bused in from around the state.

Molly Henry, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood in Sarasota, came to Tallahassee via bus with one of her children. They left around 4:30 a.m. and arrived at 9.

"I don't want to go back," Henry said of the landmark abortion rights case that was overturned in June by the Supreme Court. "My mother had a back alley abortion in 1950."

Laura Rodriguez, a 58-year-old member of the National Council for Jewish Women, drove from Miami to Tallahassee for the various pro-abortion events around the capital city.

"We need to turn this around," she said. "Abortion is a religious right."

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Then there were the locals, like Kassidy Caride, a public health graduate student at Florida State University.

“I don’t think it’s right,” Caride said about the 15-week abortion ban Florida passed last year. “There’s why we’re here. Everyone should have the right to choose.”

By a little before 11 a.m., hours after the line began, only one anti-abortion counter protester was in sight. That woman is retired Tallahassee resident Helena Sims.

Breaking News

VP Kamala Harris announces Biden White House memo protecting access to reproductive services

Liveblog:

Live updates: VP Kamala Harris takes the stage in Tallahassee, to announce memorandum

Sims, wearing a rain jacket and hefting a "CHOOSE LIFE" sign, said she was expecting more counter protesters but explained it was difficult to find information about the event.

"There's another side to the story of 'my body, my choice,'" Sims said. "And that's the baby."

While law enforcement estimate about 1,500 attended the speech at the Moon, the rain appears to have washed out a planned abortion rights march that was to coincide with the speech.

Initially, Planned Parenthood posted to its website that "we'll be joined by VP Harris" at the "Bigger Than Roe: National Day of Action" abortion rights march, organized by Women's March. As of Sunday morning, a message flashed on the site that said "Sorry, this event has reached capacity."

An organizer told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that the protest is going to take place as a totally separate event on Apalachee Parkway just outside the Ross shopping center and will happen with whoever comes, weather permitting.

USA Today Network-Florida government accountability reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla. 

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: VP Kamala Harris' Roe v. Wade speech draws long lines amid heavy rain

VP Kamala Harris announces Biden White House memo protecting access to reproductive services



Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023

On 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden said he intends to sign a presidential memorandum to consider "efforts to protect access to reproductive healthcare services."

Vice President Harris announced the presidential memorandum at a speech in Tallahassee, just miles away from the state Capitol where Florida’s Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a ban last year on abortion after 15 weeks.

The memorandum will push Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), "to consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone—no matter where they live," according to the White House.

Additionally, the memorandum will explore considerations to ensure that patients "can access legal reproductive care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy, free from threats or violence."

What does overturning Roe mean? A breakdown of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling

Read full memoradum:

President Biden to Sign Presidential Memorandum on Ensuring Safe Access to Medication Abortion

"The President has long made clear that people should have access to reproductive care free from harassment, threats, or violence," read Biden's statement from the White House. "Pharmacies should be treated no differently."

Harris will discuss next steps in the fight for reproductive rights and "reinforce the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting access to abortion, including medication abortion," according to a White House press briefing.

Biden to issue memorandum to protect access to abortion pills



Alex Gangitano

THE HILL
Sun, January 22, 2023 

President Biden will issue a presidential memorandum that will further protect access to medication abortion by ensuring doctors can prescribe and dispense it across the United States to mark 50 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

Vice President Harris will announce the memorandum on Sunday in remarks in Florida for the anniversary.

“Members of our Cabinet and our Administration are now directed to identify barriers to access and recommend actions to make sure that: doctors can legally prescribe, doctors can dispense, and women can secure safe and effective medication,” Harris will say, according to speech excerpts.

The memorandum will direct the secretary of Health and Human Services, along with the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security, to consider new guidance to support patients, providers and pharmacies that want to access, prescribe or provide mifepristone legally.

Mifepristone, which is a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug used in medication abortion, has become an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. It accounts for more than half of all abortions in the country.

The memorandum will also ensure patients know their right to access reproductive health care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it will allow U.S. retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills directly to patients with a prescription in states where abortion is legal. Medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000, when the FDA approved the use of mifepristone, but many states with strict abortion bans also limit the availability of mifepristone, either through restrictions on who can prescribe and dispense the pill or outright bans.

Harris’s speech on Sunday will focus on the next steps the administration will take to fight for reproductive rights, according to a fact sheet from her office. She is set to call out Republicans for actions to restrict abortion access, including Republicans in Congress who have called for a national ban on abortions.

“The right of every woman in every state in the country to make decisions about her own body is on the line. Republicans in Congress are now calling for an abortion ban at the moment of conception nationwide. How dare they?” Harris is expected to say.

 Abortion Debate in Malta: Between Progress, Catholic Morality and Patriarchy

When it comes to reproductive rights, Malta remains a conservative bastion in Europe. The pro-choice camp’s assertion of women’s right to abortion is hotly contested by an aggressive pro-life lobby with backing from the state and the church. Raisa Galea explores the contradictions of a debate which is bound to questions of national identity, morality and sovereignty in a post-colonial state grappling with a dual desire for progress and maintaining tradition.

Apart from Vatican City, Malta is the only country in Europe which criminalises abortion under any circumstances. The provisions within the Criminal Code of Malta have practically remained untouched since their enactment in 1854.

Yet, it is a fact that women living in Malta travel abroad to access abortion. As the law recognises induced miscarriage as a criminal offence punishable by up to three and four years of imprisonment – for a pregnant woman and a medical practitioner respectively –  there are no official statistics on the number of women seeking the procedure abroad. The Maltese pro-choice coalition Voice For Choice estimates it to be around 300 a year. Although this number is significantly below the European average (183 abortions per 1000 live births, as reported by WHO Europe), even a possibly underestimated figure indicates that women in Malta are no exception and undergo the procedure despite the blanket ban.

Celebrated by pro-life groups and challenged by the pro-choice lobby, the special status of Malta in relation to abortion is acknowledged by both sides of the divide. As was the case with divorce and spring hunting (both highly contested topics which led to referenda), the abortion debate transcends the limits of a practical, if controversial, matter and enters the domain of identity politics and ideology.

Since the ban does not prevent hundreds of abortions yearly from taking place outside of the country, the major goal of lobbying in favour of the current legislation is to stop abortion from happening on Maltese soil. A key argument against the decriminalisation of abortion is to preserve Maltese national identity as rooted in conservative politics, Catholic morality and family values.

Family values and superior national morality

The abortion debate in Malta is characterised by a dualistic narrative. While the pro-choice perspective argues in favour of recognising a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and to ending an unwanted pregnancy, the pro-life camp insists that life begins at conception and equates terminating a pregnancy with murder. The pro-choice campaign is treated with much hostility by various segments of the Maltese population. Activists are verbally assaulted, their arguments dismissed.

Delving into the reasons for such vehement opposition to abortion in Malta, anthropologist Rachael Scicluna suggested that in societies where family ties are strong and conservative views on gender roles prevail, the concept of an embryo is intrinsically linked to the concept of family. Thus, at a subconscious level, abortion could be perceived as a threat to the very foundations of Maltese kin society and, consequently, objecting to its introduction is a way of defending family values and the status quo. While this hypothesis offers an insight into the pro-lifers’ social insecurities, there seems to be another narrative fuelling hostility to abortion: the fear of outsiders’ intentions to dismantle core Maltese values.

When asked to comment on the cases of Maltese women accessing abortion abroad, the pro-life organisation Malta Unborn Child Platform refuted the estimate: “We know, for example, that around 55 women of Maltese nationality undergo abortion in the UK but we do not know how many of those women travel from Malta or actually reside in the UK. There may be also foreign women, residing in Malta, who go for an abortion in the UK.” Thus, the organisation implies that having an abortion is incompatible with being a Maltese woman living in Malta.

[…] upholding Malta’s abortion ban is a way of asserting national moral superiority.

A conspiracy theory involving a sinister foreign plan to force abortions upon the Maltese is circulating in some people’s imaginations and on social media. This is evident in personal attacks hurled at the prominent feminists Andrea Dibben and Lara Dimitrijevic, both of whom are Maltese albeit with foreign-sounding surnames. “Go do Satan’s work in your own country!” and “go back home and kill your babies” are common retorts to their pledges. This conspiracy theory is also propagated by Gift of Life Malta: according to the organisation, having “political allies within and outside of Malta” is part of the pro-choice camp’s strategy.

Asserting that a woman must not be forced to gestate against her will stirs mass outrage among the pro-life camp. Female pro-choice activists are advised to police their own sexuality and assume responsibility for the pregnancy, even if it resulted from rape. One social media commentator responding to an article that reported verbal abuse targeting Maltese pro-choice activists indicated that cases of rape are very rare in Malta and that even in cases of rape which resulted in pregnancy, the woman would be “free to go abroad to kill the unwanted baby”. Although this argument is based on a poorly informed perception of the infrequency of rape in Malta – sexual assault often goes unreported due to a victim-blaming stigma – it nevertheless demonstrates that it is possible to oppose decriminalisation of abortion in Malta while condoning “murder” so long as it happens outside of the country.

Further evidence of the abortion ban being perceived as a part of national Maltese identity in need of protection comes from the church. By stating that “our work in favour of life at all stages underlines our identity as Maltese”, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Galea Curmi implied that the country’s devotion to the Catholic faith is rivalled by the Vatican alone – the only other state in Europe which criminalises abortion.

President of Malta George Vella also spoke in favour of the current legislation at an event organised by the Malta Unborn Child Platform. His presence at the gathering clearly signalled state support for the anti-choice cause – a national mission that is “on the right side of history”.

Furthermore, the president expressed doubt about the moral authority of the European Court of Justice, where “you’re frowned upon if you do not accept abortion”. Considering that Malta’s political crisis and high-profile corruption remain a subject of international scrutiny, Vella’s statement is indeed politically loaded. Outsiders – immoral “baby-killers” – are in no position to criticise the only remaining bastion of Christian values in Europe. In other words, upholding Malta’s abortion ban is a way of asserting national moral superiority. And it could be the authorities’ effective means of diminishing international criticism, undermining verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights, and, by extension, even brushing off demands for constitutional reforms altogether.

Between “progress” and “tradition”

As a local activist and Men against Violence director Aleksandar Dimitrijevic pointedly observed, official demands to reform laws against abortion by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner receive little support from rule of law advocates in Malta. Civil society groups striving to bring Maltese legislation in line with the rest of European liberal democracies, and who are usually so attentive to international assessment, ignore calls for abolishing the abortion ban. What could be the reason for such a selective commitment to human rights as defined by international legal bodies?

Contemporary politics in Malta has been a trade-off between “progress” and “tradition”. For the past few decades, the young independent republic sought to establish itself as a modern European state while, at the same time, remaining under the tight grip of the Catholic church. An ambiguous compromise between embracing progress and preserving traditions has been reached on the basis of two criteria: profit-making and national pride.

“Progress” came in a financially lucrative form: free-market economics, construction boom, luxury megadevelopments, and “blockchain island” fantasies. A prominent hotelier pompously encouraged his compatriots to “always accept progress” – unless, it seems, this progress is unprofitable and undermines the authority of the church, the guardian of conservative traditions. Thus, a progressive stance on reproductive rights barely enjoys a fraction of the state’s enthusiasm for “progressive” elite property developments.

Reproductive rights remain a bone of contention in the rivalry between perceived national uniqueness and questions about EU integration.

Matters of national sovereignty and upholding traditions hold a special political significance in the post-colonial state. Reproductive rights remain a bone of contention in the rivalry between perceived national uniqueness and questions about EU integration. Guarded by the Church as an inherently Christian value, a ban on abortion is thus construed as an essential Maltese tradition. In the context of a post-colonial country, independent from the British Empire for a little longer than half a century, the ban is also a manifestation of national sovereignty and unwillingness to bow down to external power.

What about Malta’s LGBTIQ legislation? Some may argue that by becoming the first country in Europe to ban gay conversion therapy in 2016 – and by legalising same-sex marriage a year later – the Maltese state has declared its commitment to progressive social policy. Seen from a different perspective, however, this was rather a win for national pride. The reform gave even conservative locals a reason to savour international recognition and be proud of Malta leaping ahead of the curve compared to the rest of Europe. “We made history” – the rainbow message projected onto the Office of the Prime Minister rendered Malta a champion of the cause in the European Union. Since 2016, the country has been ranked the most progressive in Europe (and later, in the world) on LGBTIQ rights.

In the case of abortion, it is precisely the blanket ban that makes Malta “special” in the eyes of its citizens, and distinct from other formally secular European states. Defending the country’s role as a citadel of superior morality besieged by “baby-killers” could be a seductively heroic narrative. Also, portraying the abortion ban as an untouchable tradition may function as compensation for the loss of natural and architectural heritage sacrificed on the altar of economic progress.

[…] portraying the abortion ban as an untouchable tradition may function as compensation for the loss of natural and architectural heritage sacrificed on the altar of economic progress.

Institutionalised stigmatisation of women

“Does our president consider his citizens who have had an abortion murderers?” This was the question posed by Voice For Choice in response to the president’s pro-life endorsement. This is certainly one of the most pertinent questions of the debate. Another question: if abortion is murder, why does the punishment for induced miscarriage range from eighteen months to three and four years of imprisonment? Is this not too mild a punishment for murderers?

As noted by Maltese feminist lawyer Desiree Attard in her doctoral thesis, the Criminal Code itself implies that “a woman’s life is more valuable than that of the fetus.” As per Article 242, the punishment for performing an abortion that results in the death of the woman is life imprisonment. This disparity in punishment – four years versus a life sentence – means that, unlike a woman, the law recognises that a fetus is not a person.

If the legislators did not equate abortion with wilful homicide in 1854, what makes this an acceptable argument in 2020? Such contradictions further reveal the deeply ideological basis of the pro-life argument, whose goal is to preserve the conservative status quo by denying women an established human right and exerting control over their bodies.

With the blessing of both the state and society, the “pro-life” camp turns fellow women citizens into outcasts who must suffer in silence.

Apart from being legally incorrect, equating abortion with murder means regarding women who have undergone the procedure as murderers. This is no less than a means of institutional oppression and ostracisation of women. Both the endorsement of the anti-choice perspective by the president and the common perception that links it to Maltese identity and national morality celebrate Malta as a conservative patriarchal state.

Society and the state force Maltese women into shame for accessing a healthcare service available to women in the absolute majority of countries worldwide. Such marginalisation, reinforced stigma and cultivation of guilt are detrimental to women’s psychological and social wellbeing; they cause loss of self-esteem and induce fear of abandonment. With the blessing of both the state and society, the “pro-life” camp turns fellow women citizens into outcasts who must suffer in silence.

This is an edited version of an article first published on Isles of the Left

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/abortion-debate-in-malta-between-progress-catholic-morality-and-patriarchy/