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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this September to determine whether the state’s near-total abortion ban violates Hoosiers’ religious beliefs under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.
The state’s high court granted the transfer from Marion Superior Court on Friday. In doing so, the case bypasses the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, whose office represents the defendants in the case, celebrated the transfer in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The Indiana Supreme Court has granted our motion for immediate transfer, sending our appeal of a Marion County judge’s permanent injunction in a challenge to Indiana’s pro-life laws straight to the state’s highest court,” he wrote. “The lower court’s decision fundamentally misunderstands religious liberty by claiming it confers a right to abortion. We look forward to continuing our defense of Indiana’s pro-life laws in front of the Indiana Supreme Court.”
Stevie J. Pactor, senior attorney for the ACLU of Indiana, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case, told The Indiana Lawyer that the team also looks forward to arguing the case in the state’s high court.
In March, a Marion County judge granted a permanent injunction preventing the state from enforcing the abortion ban in cases where doing so violates residents’ religious reliefs under the religious freedom act. In granting the injunction, Judge Christina Klineman wrote that the state failed to meet its burden of showing a compelling state interest in banning abortions for religious exercise.
The threatened injury to plaintiffs without an injunction outweighs the harm to defendants because there is no evidence that making a limited exception for religious exercise would drastically increase the numbers of abortions sought in the state, according to the judge’s order.
Because the case is a class action, the permanent injunction applies both to the stated plaintiffs and anyone whose religious beliefs would direct them to seek an abortion that would otherwise be banned by the state, according to reporting by Indianapolis Business Journal.
After the trial court granted the permanent injunction, the defendants filed an appeal asking for the case to be transferred to the Supreme Court because the court of appeals “has already expressed its views on the principal issues in this case.”
Back in April 2024, the appellate court upheld the Marion Superior Court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing its abortion ban against the anonymous plaintiffs in the original lawsuit.
The original lawsuit was filed in September 2022 on behalf of Hoosier Jews for Choice, a pro-choice organization in the state, and several anonymous plaintiffs who identified as being Jewish, Muslim or did not identify with a denomination.
The original complaint stated that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates RFRA, which prohibits government action that “substantially burdens” someone’s religious exercise.
Jewish law prioritizes the physical and mental health of the mother prior to birth, as the fetus is not yet deemed a person while in the mother’s womb, according to the complaint. Some Muslim scholars believe the fetus does not possess a soul until 120 days after conception.
Indiana’s law bans all abortions in Indiana with three, time-limited exceptions: 1, if the abortion is necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life; 2, if the fetus has a “lethal fetal anomaly” and 3, if the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape.
Oral arguments will take place Sept. 10 at 10 a.m. with further details to come.
The case is Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, et al. v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1, et al., 49D01-2209-PL-31056.
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