Satanic Temple challenges Missouri’s 72-hour abortion waiting period

Missouri’s informed consent law requires pregnant women be given the chance to see an ultrasound and hear the fetus’s heartbeat and wait 72 hours before the abortion is performed, according to the Kansas City Star. 

{mosads}The same law also requires the woman seeking an abortion be given a booklet that says “human life begins at conception.” 

The Satanic Temple argued before the Mississippi Supreme Court in January that the pamphlet promotes a religious belief. The defendant in that lawsuit, who received an abortion in 2015, says the state’s law conflicted with her religious beliefs.  

The outcome of that case has not yet been decided. 

“Missouri lawmakers are going to be forced to accept that there are religious perspectives, just as deeply held, that may directly contradict their own religious beliefs and directives,” Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said in a statement announcing the new lawsuit.

According to the group’s website, its mission is to “reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.”

The group opposes the Westboro Baptist Church, advocates against corporal punishment and provides legal protection against laws that “unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy.”