The Satanic Temple has decided to use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to scorn pro-life activists by opening an abortion clinic in New Mexico.
On Wednesday, the organization announced the launch of TST Health, which it described as “the first-ever religious abortion clinic network.” It said its first clinic will open at an undisclosed location in New Mexico on Feb. 14.
The new clinic will be named after the mother of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade last year, as a mocking jab.
The Satanic Temple claims this effort is a “collaborative of reproductive rights advocates and abortion care providers contracted and directed by The Satanic Temple to advance its Reproductive Religious Rights Campaign.”
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The temple released a flyer providing an overview of what the procedure would entail and assuring those interested that they would be made comfortable.
“The Satanic Temple’s Abortion Ritual serves to cast off notions of guilt, shame, and mental discomfort that a patient may experience when choosing to have a medically safe abortion,” the flyer said.
The temple cited two of its tenets as key parts of the ritual.
The first is Tenet III: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.”
The second is Tenet V: “Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”
This is then followed by a personal affirmation: “By my body, my blood By my will, it is done.”
Interestingly, the ritual purportedly provides “something that allows you to see your reflection or imagine yourself” but does not provide an ultrasound of the unborn baby.
The organization’s news release said the facility will provide free telehealth screenings and abortion pills in states where abortion has been banned
The temple said the facility’s staff will be fully licensed medical professionals and will provide the abortion pills to those 17 and older up to 11 weeks pregnant.
“The medication, which costs around $90, will be discreetly mailed to them by TST Health’s pharmacy partner,” it said.
The Satanic Temple was founded about 10 years ago by two men using the pseudonyms Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, The New York Times reported in 2015.
“The first conception was in response to George W. Bush’s creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,” Jarry told the outlet at the time. “I thought, ‘There should be some kind of counter.'”
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When speaking about the naming of the new abortion facility, Jarry took another grisly shot at Alito.
“In 1950, Samuel Alito’s mother did not have options, and look what happened,” he said, according to Fox News.
“Before 1973, doctors who performed abortions could lose their licenses and go to jail,” Jarry said. “The clinic’s name serves to remind people just how important it is to have the right to control one’s body and the potential ramifications of losing that right.”
The temple advocates “bodily autonomy” and the “freedom to offend” when it comes to its ideas and activities.
To the Satanists, self-idolatry is not a sin but an important virtue.
The organization said it plans to expand its abortion operations to other states after the New Mexico facility opens.
“This is just the beginning,” Erin Helian, executive director of campaigns for the temple, said, according to Fox News.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
