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In reply to the discussion: Men would never tolerate it. [View all]SARose
(292 posts)marks a win for abortion rights in Indiana
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The unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel, which found that the states abortion ban burdens the religious beliefs of those whose faiths permit abortions, signals the possibility of a long overdue shift in the conservative bias of religious freedom jurisprudence. It also signals the emergence of a partial, albeit untested, argument for people needing an abortion in states that have banned it.
The Indiana case was brought in 2022 by five anonymous plaintiffs of faith and the group Jewish Hoosiers for Choice. Theyre seeking a religious exemption from the abortion ban Indiana enacted following the U.S. Supreme Courts reversal of Roe v. Wade that year. They said the ban violates their rights under the states Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which, like the federal law the owners of Hobby Lobby successfully relied on to avoid providing contraception coverage, protects religious objectors from laws that substantially burden their sincerely held religious beliefs.
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Still, the decision shows how, in the decade since the Hobby Lobby decision, there's been a backlash against the Christian rights efforts to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. The Hobby Lobby case grew out of the Christian rights broader attack on Obama-era efforts to expand reproductive and LGBTQ rights. The Christian right cast those policies as tantamount to persecution of Christians.
With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives following the 2010 midterms, they staged a series of volatile hearings intended to portray Obama as trampling on the religious freedom and conscience rights of Christians who opposed contraception and abortion. In the process, those Republicans made it clear that they believed that religious freedom for conservative Christians took precedence over the rights of everyone else. In other words, they believed in religious freedom for me but not for thee. Thats why the Indiana Court of Appeals decision finding religious freedom for those with opposite beliefs on abortion is so momentous.
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