Members of the Satanic Temple opened a “telehealth abortion clinic” in Virginia to dispense abortion pills, marking the second such initiative they have launched in the United States.
The group said in a release that the “services will be free of charge, with patients only needing to cover the cost of medication through a third party at a very low price,” as they continue “fighting back against the efforts to restrict abortion access” after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
The Satanic Temple called the Virginia entity the “Right to Your Life Satanic Abortion Clinic” and said that they opened a similar facility in New Mexico. The organization added that they are “taking legal action” in states like Indiana and Idaho to “provide religious abortion services.”
“As abortion rights continue to be a central issue in the upcoming presidential election, we remain steadfast in our mission to expand access and protect bodily autonomy,” they said. “We know the urgency of this work, and we will not stop until we have made a lasting difference.”
The offer of abortion pills from the Satanic Temple comes as the substances become the most common method of murdering preborn babies in the nation, with nearly two-thirds of abortions obtained with that method. The substances remain explicitly legal for women in all fifty states, including the roughly one dozen conservative states which claim to have banned abortion.
The Satanic Temple, which rejects belief in a literal Satan, has been frequently criticized for mounting campaigns to assert First Amendment protections while challenging Christianity.
Chapters of the group have launched after-school Satan clubs at government schools that have after-school Bible studies or Christian student organizations in order to file lawsuits claiming discrimination when their own clubs are disallowed. One lawsuit filed on behalf of the Satanic Temple asserted that a school district in Tennessee “substantially burdened its ability to exercise its religiously motivated practice of offering inclusive, welcoming religious clubs at public schools.”
Members of the Satanic Temple of Iowa also erected a demonic statue in the Iowa State Capitol last year, after which Michael Cassidy, a veteran and Christian, pushed over and beheaded the shrine. Iowa prosecutors filed hate crime enhancements against Cassidy but eventually dropped the charges in exchange for his guilty plea to much less severe misdemeanor charges.
