A federal appeals court has rejected the Satanic Temple’s religious challenge to Indiana’s near-total abortion ban.
On January 6, 2026, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a 2023 lower court opinion that the organization lacked standing to sue because it did not provide evidence that at least one Indian believer was actually harmed.
“This lawsuit was absurd from the start, but the Court’s unanimous decision is a critical victory as it continues to uphold our constitutionally and legally rock-solid anti-abortion laws,” Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a press release.
Under Indiana law, abortion is allowed only in very limited circumstances: fatal fetal anomalies, threats to the mother’s life and pregnancies before ten weeks due to rape or incest. Lawyers for the Satanic Temple argue the restrictions conflict with the religious practices of its Indian followers.
One of the organization’s core principles is that “the body is inviolable and subject only to the will of the individual,” and it allows abortion. One of the group’s practices was a “Satanic Abortion Ritual,” a type of meditation designed to “break away from the notion of guilt, shame, and mental discomfort that patients may experience as a result of choosing a medically safe and legal abortion,” according to evidence presented to the court.
The group filed an initial complaint against Attorney General Todd Rokita and then-Gov. In September 2022, Eric Holcomb argued that Indiana’s abortion law violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom and the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In March 2023, Holcomb was removed from the lawsuit and Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears was added as a defendant.
The group tried to open a telemedicine clinic in Indiana that would provide medical abortion services, but failed in part because of a 2022 regulation that specifically prohibits the prescribing of abortion pills via telemedicine.
The lawsuit also claims, without specifically naming the members, that the state’s law violates the rights of Indiana temple members who are unable to terminate pregnancies after contraceptive failure.
In October 2023, U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled that the Satanic Temple lacked standing to sue in the Southern District of Indiana because “Samuel Alito’s Mother’s Satanic Abortion Clinic” had never operated in the state and the organization had never provided evidence that specific people had been harmed.
The Satanic Temple appealed the dismissal. The Court of Appeal unanimously upheld Magnus-Stinson’s ruling, finding there was no evidence of injury.
“In summary, the Satanic Temple has not identified any members, through its constitutionally questionable statistical probability methods or otherwise, who are actually Injured,” the opinion reads in part.
The Satanic Temple was founded in 2013. It is a secular group whose members do not worship the biblical Satan but liken him to “a symbol of eternal rebellion against authoritarian authority,” according to its website. The temple has no connection with the Church of Satan, which was founded in the 1960s.
Ryan Murphy is IndyStar’s community reporter. You can contact her at rhmurphy@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared in The Indianapolis Star: Satanic Temple loses abortion religious freedom lawsuit