Indiana Court: State Law Allows Faith-Justified Killing
Religious beliefs trump Indiana’s interest in preserving human life, says trial court. Until RFRA is repealed, Indiana residents of all ages are threatened.
Last week, an Indiana trial court entered a permanent injunction which prohibits the state from enforcing its anti-abortion law against people who assert that “prohibiting them from receiving abortions would substantially burden their religious exercise as permitted by Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).” The full text of the decision is available here. This disastrous ruling threatens the lives of all Hoosiers, not just the unborn. Allow us to explain.
First, we must acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus: human life begins at fertilization. The anonymous plaintiffs in this case adhere to religious doctrines that cause them to reject that reality. One argues that “Jewish law instructs her that a fetus is not a life” and that “life begins when a person takes their first breath after being born.” [Important note: that is not a unanimous Jewish opinion and Secular Pro-Life fully welcomes Jews.] Another “believes all humans are directed to act in a manner that promotes and does not harm other humans or this community of humanity,” but arbitrarily excludes unborn humans from that community because “a fetus is part of the body of the mother.”
Americans are, of course, free to believe demonstrably wrong things. But what happens when a person’s sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with democratically enacted laws?
We covered this lawsuit at an earlier stage of the proceedings:
RFRA (short for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) is a law adopted by the federal government and numerous states, including Indiana. It governs when people can obtain religious exceptions to generally applicable laws. For example, a prison may have a generally applicable policy requiring inmates to be clean-shaven, but a Muslim inmate with a sincere religious belief that he must grow his beard can obtain an exception.
In the Dobbs era, pro-abortion activists got creative and brought RFRA lawsuits against pro-life laws in several states. They argued that since some religious groups support abortion, adherents of those religions should be able to disregard pro-life legislation.
There are limits, however, and one of them is that RFRA won’t apply if the state has a “compelling interest” in the law. A prisoner’s beard length is really not that important in the grand scheme of things. But when a human life is on the line, the state’s compelling interest will prevail. Jehovah’s Witnesses have filed unsuccessful lawsuits to avoid giving medically necessary blood transfusions to their children. Since the state has a compelling interest in saving a child’s life, those challenges were doomed. Abortion laws are also motivated by compelling interest in children’s lives, which Dobbs allows. So case closed, right? I certainly thought so.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana begs to differ. It issued an opinion enjoining Indiana’s abortion law (that is, putting it on hold) while the pro-abortion RFRA case proceeds. A court of appeal will only do that if it believes the plaintiffs are likely to win. And the reasoning it used should horrify every American, whether pro-life or pro-choice.
That reasoning in a nutshell? If a law allows any exception, it must allow religious exceptions too. In its ruling last week, the trial judge brought up several exceptions to Indiana’s abortion law:
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. The fact that the Abortion Law expressly allows for abortion in other circumstances, in at least one circumstance at any gestational age, demonstrates the lack of a compelling interest in “protecting life” under all circumstances and from fertilization. Id. Moreover, “the [Indiana] General Assembly has declined to explicitly define human beings to include zygotes, embryos, or all fetuses.” Id. (code citations omitted). The Abortion Law specifically exempts from its coverage in vitro fertilization procedures—a process that results in post-fertilization embryos, even though “there is the potential for life that might be destroyed in the process of this procedure.” Id. (citing Ind. Code § 16-34-1-0.5). “That broad exemption suggests any compelling interest by the State is absent at fertilization.” Id.
The trial judge either did not consider, or deliberately ignored, the consequences of interpreting RFRA so expansively. There is no limiting principle that will constrain this to the abortion context. If a single human life goes unprotected in the law, then no one is safe; all a murderer has to do is cite a religious belief. As we (and law professors) have warned:
Indiana has similar exceptions to homicide. Indiana Criminal Code § 35-41-3-2 permits the use of “deadly force” if “the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony” or “reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.” Those individuals are exempt from murder charges. So are executioners, since Indiana is a death penalty state.
Because Indiana has legislated at least two exceptions to its homicide law, Indiana does not have a compelling interest in enforcing that law against religiously motivated murderers. Let the legal human sacrifices and honor killings begin!
There is still hope to reverse this disastrous course. Indiana can appeal the trial court’s injunction. But Indiana’s higher courts have already issued adverse rulings on procedural and standing issues in this case. We cannot count on them. The GOP-controlled state legislature must act.If courts are going to interpret RFRA to allow murder – today in the womb, and tomorrow outside of it – then Indiana lawmakers must repeal RFRA. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment will continue to protect religious freedom without stomping on the rights of the defenseless. Indiana did not even have RFRA until 2015, when was passed in the context of backlash to LGBT anti-discrimination laws. This is an issue where liberals and conservatives can find common cause. Until they do, the life of every human being in Indiana is at risk.
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