Indiana Supreme Court agrees to review challenge to state abortion ban

Indiana law bans most abortions throughout pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, or “medical emergencies” in the first 10 weeks or fetal anomalies “incompatible with sustained life” up to 20 weeks. It also requires medical care for any babies who survive attempted abortions. That law has stopped the vast majority of abortions, yet they persist due to mail-order abortion pills, which the state legislature has so far been unable to quash.

In March, Marion County Superior Court Judge Christina Klineman issued a permanent injunction against applying Indiana’s abortion ban to the plaintiffs, who asserted their “religious beliefs” in “bodily autonomy,” life not beginning until birth, and fetuses being “part of the body of the mother.” One of the suing women identified as Jewish; the other “does not belong to a specific religious tradition” but claims “personal religious and spiritual beliefs that guide her life.”

“The state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act bars a law that substantially interferes with class members’ religious beliefs that a pregnant person’s mental or physical health takes precedence over that of a zygote, embryo, or fetus,” Klineman ruled. “The abortion law would allow a plaintiff to seek an abortion if her pregnancy were the result of rape, but not if it were mandated by her religious beliefs. The state has not justified this differential treatment by establishing that its interest in the same prenatal life changes based upon the reason for terminating a pregnancy.”

“We disagree with the court’s decision and have already appealed,” a spokesperson for Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita responded. “As we have with every challenge against our pro-life law, we’ll continue fighting to protect the lives of the unborn.”

Now, Rokita’s office has announced that the state’s highest court has agreed to take the case, with oral arguments slated to begin September 10.

“The Indiana Supreme Court has granted our motion for immediate transfer, sending our appeal of a Marion County judge’s permanent injunction in a challenge to Indiana’s pro-life laws straight to the state’s highest court,” the attorney general said. “The lower court’s decision fundamentally misunderstands religious liberty by claiming it confers a right to abortion. We look forward to continuing our defense of Indiana’s pro-life laws in front of the Indiana Supreme Court.”

Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions. 

But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.