ALDOUS J. PENNYFARTHING: Satanic Temple opens telehealth abortion clinic and names it after Samuel Alito's mom

Aldous J Pennyfarthing

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It’s not clear whether members of the Satanic Temple really worship—or even believe in—Satan or if they’re simply partaking in an elaborate kayfabe designed to one day coax a facial expression out of Mike Pence. Either way, they’re doing some great work.

The temple is known for its cheeky PR campaigns and pro-secular-government initiatives, which include supporting reproductive freedom, advocating for church-state separation, and doing other “Satanic good works.” And if they can piss off Samuel Alito in the process? Well, that should earn them at least one extra tea saucer of fly-pocked gruel in hell. Assuming hell exists and they really want to go there. Which, of course, it doesn’t—unless you happen to be Ted Cruz’s dog.

Fox News (this is a story about Satan, after all):

The Satanic Temple is opening a health clinic in New Mexico to provide "free religious medication abortion" and will name the facility "The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic" in mockery of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

TST Health, the new medical services arm of the nontheistic religious organization, will provide telehealth screenings and appointments to provide abortion pills to patients. These services will be provided free of charge as part of The Satanic Temple's "abortion ritual," though patients must still pay for the medications from a pharmacy, which typically cost around $90, according to the TST Health website.

The New Mexico facility will be operated by licensed medical staff and will make its services available to state residents who are at least 17 years old, up to 11 weeks pregnant and medically eligible for an abortion.

Holy shit, that’s some A-level trolling right there. And it’s all for a good cause!

Of course, the Satanic Temple no doubt anticipates a fight over this—something they hinted at in their press release on the clinic’s opening:

Launching Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic in New Mexico is just the first step for TST Health, The Satanic Temple’s religious medical services arm. Plans are already underway to launch clinics in several more states, including those where the religious abortion practice is banned. The clinic's legal protections rest on TST’s central argument in several pending lawsuits: TST members’ participation in the Religious Abortion Ritual is exempt from state and federal restrictions, and bans on an essential part of a religious practice are unconstitutional and a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

We’ll see whether that works, or whether only one cohort of religious practitioners is allowed to have a say over what women do with their own bodies.

The Satanic Temple’s past stunts include briefly erecting a statue of the god Baphomet outside the Arkansas State Capitol and creating an After-School Satan Club for elementary school students. (Kids may have been disappointed to learn that it was heavy on “science and rational thinking” and “benevolence and empathy for everybody,” and comparatively light on ritual goat sacrifices.

Of course, if you want to support the Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic (honestly, I’m more offended by the awkward consecutive possessives than the clinic’s overt association with Satan), you can donate here.

Give ‘em hell, folks.

After all, the overwhelming majority of Americans wants abortion legal.