(ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH) -- JEFFERSON CITY -- The Missouri Supreme Court is considering whether some of the state’s abortion restrictions violate the religious beliefs of a woman who is part of the Satanic Temple.
An attorney for the woman made the unusual argument Tuesday as he asked Missouri’s highest court to block the state’s mandatory three-day waiting period for abortions and requirements that doctors providing abortions give women a booklet that says “the life of each human being begins at conception,” offer them an ultrasound and give them an opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat.
The woman traveled from southeastern Missouri to St. Louis for an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2015. The woman, whose name is not revealed in court documents, did eventually obtain an abortion. But in a letter to her doctors that was included in court documents, she wrote that some of the state’s restrictions on abortion conflict with her beliefs to follow scientific understanding of the world.