The ACLU thinks there is a religious right to kill babies in abortions. And it wants to overturn Indiana’s abortion ban for that crazy reason.
The ACLU of Indiana asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to treat abortion as an exercise of religion that Indiana’s near-total ban may not stop. The state said that theory would turn religious liberty into a way around laws that protect unborn children.
The hourlong argument tested whether the 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires exemptions from the 2022 abortion law for people who say their faith calls for ending a pregnancy in circumstances the statute otherwise forbids.
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Solicitor General James Barta urged the justices to dismiss the case. He said the two anonymous women at the center of the suit are not pregnant and are not seeking abortions and therefore can’t challenge the law.
“Plaintiffs’ entire claim is built on a chain of speculation,” Barta told the court. “During the four years that this case has been pending, plaintiffs have never been pregnant or wanting an abortion.”
Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said the women are already changing their lives — including intimacy and family planning — because they fear they could not obtain an abortion if their beliefs required one.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in September 2022 for the pro-abortion group Hoosier Jews for Choice, two anonymous women and a certified class.
In March, Marion Superior Court Judge Christina Klineman issued a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of the ban against those plaintiffs when denying an abortion would substantially burden their religious exercise. The order does not lift the ban for everyone, keeping protections in place for unborn babies.
Indiana’s law, passed after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the state’s high court has already upheld the ban against other attacks.
In 2023 it ruled that it is “undisputed” that the Indiana Constitution empowers the Legislature to protect unborn life. In May it voted 4-1 to reject a Planned Parenthood challenge and leave lower-court rulings standing.
