Cosmopolitan is promoting The Satanic Temple’s (TST) ritual abortions to its readers as “genius,” and TST couldn’t be happier about it.
In its November/December issue, the magazine ran a “special report” on TST’s abortion business, which is named for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s mother Rose, who opposed abortion. The New Mexico-based telehealth abortion facility dispenses abortion drugs through the 11th week of pregnancy. Cosmo claims that TST “attempts to take pervasive moral panic and flip it on its head, utilizing Satanists’ reputation for defiance to expand access to urgent health care.”
But it’s really about money, as is the case with any abortion facility, because intentionally killing a preborn child is never medically necessary. For TST though, it actually could be more sinister than wanting to make money off of abortion. It could be about sacrificing babies.
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Child sacrifice
Human sacrifices, especially of children, have been present throughout history and are rightly condemned. Yet, research published in the Journal of American Culture highlighted the history of baby sacrifice by Satanists in its paper, “Breeders for Satan: Toward a Sociology of Sexual Trauma Tales.”
“During her years of imprisonment in a downtown Los Angeles breeder warehouse, Lauren Stratford said she was forcibly impregnated so that the satanic cult that was holding her captive could ritually sacrifice the baby she bore,” states the paper. “This was the same satanic cult, of which her own parents were devotees….”
TST may not be the exact satanic group that Stratford’s babies were killed by, but it called concern over stories of abuse like Stratford’s nothing but “conspiracy theories.”
Cosmo even portrays TST as a group that doesn’t “actually worship the devil.” It claims there “are no ritual sacrifices” and that TST is a “nontheistic faith” that treats the devil as a “mascot.” Cosmo also claims that TST members “champion science.”
Science dictates that human life begins at fertilization when a new, unique human being is created and begins her life, which will take her from embryo to fetus to newborn to infant to toddler to preteen, and so on. Anyone who ‘champions science’ knows this — or should.
Yet, Cosmo gives TST a glowing review as a group of activists who stand up for children’s rights. It even defends the TST members who wore adult diapers and baby masks while “flogging one another with whips” to disrupt a Christian-led pro-life rally.
Despite saying there are “no religious sacrifices,” Cosmo calls abortions carried out by TST ‘religious rituals’. A religious ritual involving the killing of an innocent human being seems a lot like a “religious sacrifice.” Cosmo says (emphasis added):
By TST’s accounting, no other faith-based group in the U.S. has ever launched an abortion clinic. And that’s the game-changing twist here: Unlike other abortion-pill-by-mail providers like Hey Jane or Abuzz, TST is a religion. Meaning its patients, who don’t have to be Satanists themselves, are participating in a religious ritual.
Growing the TST abortion business
Recent rulings in which Christian business owners were found to be within their rights to refuse to partake in LGBTQ weddings serve as inspiration for TST. It plans to use those rulings to claim a religious exemption for abortion in hopes of spreading its abortion business into pro-life states.
Before TST can expand, it will want to prove profitable. Patient turnout has been low at its only facility. “[A]s of late summer, about 50 people had come through the clinic’s virtual doors,” Cosmo reports. It recently had to cut back the number of nurses it employs and has outsourced some of its on-call shifts to a third-party provider. TST executive director Erin Helian says, “It’s a constant struggle to keep our heads above water.”
“But,” Cosmo says, “that’s okay, because this isn’t the end game. It’s only step one.”
Part of step one appears to be marketing, and that’s where Cosmo comes in. Who better to paint TST as an ally to women than Cosmo magazine, which has an average circulation of 1.53 million and an average audience of 28.87 million, according to Wordsrated? That’s a lot of women to manipulate.
“This milestone is not just a celebration of our clinic but a powerful testament to the importance of our fight for religious reproductive rights,” said TST. “Our feature in Cosmopolitan is a monumental moment in our ongoing battle to … protect our member’s religious right to practice the abortion ritual.” But, remember, a woman doesn’t have to be a TST member to get an abortion through TST.
Along with the marketing blitz from Cosmo, TST first hopes to expand its “religious care model” to Indiana and Idaho — where there are strong protections for preborn children. TST lawsuits are already underway in those states, though an Indiana district judge recently dismissed TST’s lawsuit there. TST is seeking an appeal. If it is successful, TST will be set up for expansion into pro-life states where it will likely be the only abortion game in town.
TST’s attorney, W. James Mac Naughton, has backup plans as well. He is looking into the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment, which states “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” as a way to classify the uterus as private property with ownership rights “including the right to not be snatched away by an uninvited fetus without consent or compensation.”
Babies do not show up and ‘snatch’ uteruses. Adults invite procreation when they engage in sex, which allows sperm to fertilize an egg. A baby is created through no initiative of her own.
Mac Naughton is also looking into the Prohibition of Involuntary Servitude Clause in the Thirteenth Amendment, which he hopes to use to frame the baby as a tiny slaveholder who forces the woman to provide warmth and nutrients. In addition, he wants to use the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to go directly after Idaho’s and Indiana’s exceptions that allow abortion for rape and incest, calling those exceptions discriminatory — not towards babies conceived in rape and incest — but towards women who become pregnant by accident rather than by force. ‘Why should rape survivors get to have abortions when other women don’t?’ is the reasoning.
And, of course, Mac Naughton will use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to claim the government is “substantially burdening” both TST and a woman’s right to practice religion through the Satanic abortion ritual.
Ritual sacrifice
“I think it’s genius,” formerly-Catholic Jessica (whose name was changed) told Cosmo. She’s 37 with three children and is not a Satanist, but “as of this week, she’s a fan.” Cosmo continues, “She’s also pregnant but not for long. A set of abortion pills is waiting for her back home, thanks to speedy shipping via Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic team.” Jessica called her experience with TST “supportive.”
“I think that’s the biggest thing — they really reinforce that this is your decision and your choice and that you are supported,” she says.
This seems obvious, but of course the abortion business you’re buying an abortion from is supportive. It’s trying to sell you an abortion and has no reason not to be “supportive.” But — as with the rest of virtual abortion businesses — it probably isn’t helping women who suffer the serious complications that can arise. Three separate studies have found that six percent of women who take the abortion pill will require a visit to urgent care or the ER. The abortion pill has been found to be four times more dangerous than a first-trimester surgical abortion. Like any business selling a harmful product while lying about how great it is, TST likely won’t be around to help a concerned customer.
But still, Jessica “listened with curiosity as the nurse described the optional ceremonial aspects of the Satanic abortion ritual: First, you find a quiet space. Bring a mirror if you can. Just before taking the medication, gaze at your reflection and focus on your personhood. Home in on your intent, your responsibility to you.”
It is an act of self-worship fueled by Satan’s desire to separate people from God — and it’s his oldest trick.
TST tells Jessica, “When you’re ready, read the following tenet aloud: One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. Take the medication and immediately afterward, recite, 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.”
Yet, that’s exactly what TST and abortion businesses do. They warp the scientific fact that life begins at fertilization into the false notion that each woman can decide for herself when life begins. That is the distortion of scientific fact to fit one’s own desire to believe abortion is morally acceptable.
TST also states, “Later, once your body expels the aborted tissue, return to your reflection. Focus again on your personhood, your power in making this decision. Complete the ritual by reciting a personal affirmation: By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done.”
TST’s focus is on a woman’s “power” to kill her own child. The recitation of “my body, my blood” and “my will, it is done” is a demonized version of Jesus’ own words when He sacrificed His body and blood, and when He said God’s will be done. TST can claim Satan is just a mascot, but that’s only because Satan has manipulated them into thinking so. His greatest trick is to make the world think he either doesn’t exist or he’s just a prop.
While it is unknown if Jessica went through with the abortion, she said she planned to include some of the rituals in her abortion because “Why not?” But she likely didn’t see “aborted tissue” when it was carried out. Depending on how far along she was, she may have had the traumatic experience of seeing and recognizing her dead baby, as so many other women have testified to. She also may have had the same “excruciating” experience that Britney Spears did. But Cosmo didn’t mention that.
If anything is obvious based on Cosmo’s celebration and normalization of The Satanic Temple’s ritual abortions, it’s that this is our cue to take our children back to church, to stop focusing on self-empowerment, and to stop allowing the culture to raise our children.
