Indiana Judge Distorted Religious Freedom to Support Abortion

On December 2, an Indiana judge embraced religious superstition, rejected science, and in doing so dragged the Hoosier State back into the Dark Ages. In the case, Anonymous Plaintiff 1, et al . v. The Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, the trial court found that Indiana could not enforce a commonsense, abortion-limiting, and science-driven regulation that restricted abortions with limited exceptions against religious objectors who advocate for broad abortion access. The court did this under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law once derided for its propensity to “turn back the clock on equality and foster a culture of intolerance.”

Of course, such a description is overwrought — just as concerns about Indiana’s RFRA were badly overwrought years ago, when it first became law. But now progressives who once put religious liberty in scare quotes are celebrating the use of religion as a sword against the state, so long as it is used to slay the right foe: laws limiting access to abortion. Yet in their exuberance for such a clever reclamation of the First Amendment, they have managed to bungle the concept of religious liberty altogether. And, because of their errors, they — unlike true proponents of religious liberty — are bringing about the harms they prophesied Indiana’s RFRA would cause.

HS

About the Author

Howard Slugh

Howard Slugh is the general counsel for the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty.

About the Author

Tal Fortgang

Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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On December 2, an Indiana judge embraced religious superstition, rejected science, and in doing so dragged the Hoosier State back into the Dark Ages. In the case, Anonymous Plaintiff 1, et al . v. The Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, the trial court found that Indiana could not enforce a commonsense, abortion-limiting, and science-driven regulation that restricted abortions with limited exceptions against religious objectors who advocate for broad abortion access. The court did this under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law once derided for its propensity to “turn back the clock on equality and foster a culture of intolerance.”

Of course, such a description is overwrought — just as concerns about Indiana’s RFRA were badly overwrought years ago, when it first became law. But now progressives who once put religious liberty in scare quotes are celebrating the use of religion as a sword against the state, so long as it is used to slay the right foe: laws limiting access to abortion. Yet in their exuberance for such a clever reclamation of the First Amendment, they have managed to bungle the concept of religious liberty altogether. And, because of their errors, they — unlike true proponents of religious liberty — are bringing about the harms they prophesied Indiana’s RFRA would cause.