January 6, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit unanimously upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the Satanic Temple against Indiana’s near-total abortion ban, citing a lack of standing. The Massachusetts-based “religious organization” had argued that the Indiana’s restrictions violated religious freedoms by preventing its members from accessing telehealth abortions through a clinic in New Mexico.
The case stemmed from Indiana’s 2022 law, enacted after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, which prohibits telemedicine for abortion-inducing drugs and requires in-person procedures in licensed facilities. The Satanic Temple, which views abortion as a ritual aligned with its tenets of bodily autonomy, sought an injunction against enforcement, claiming harm to its Indiana members. However, the court found the group failed to identify any specific injured member, relying instead on statistical speculation about potential pregnancies among its 11,300 Indiana adherents.
U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson initially dismissed the suit in October 2023, ruling that the Temple lacked evidence of operating in Indiana or concrete plans to violate the law. The appellate panel, in an opinion authored by Judge Diane Sykes Pryor, affirmed this, stating that without proof of imminent injury, the claims were speculative and not redressable, as other state statutes would still bar the desired services.
In August of 2025, the Alaska State Medical Board unanimously adopted a statement that elective late term abortions up until the time of delivery is not ethical medical practice and does not embody the values of Alaskans. The medical board acted directly to assert its authority over medical ethics, emphasizing that medical ethics should be based on professional insight. The Satanic Temple claims Indiana’s abortion ban has caused all of its members to “suffer the stigma of being evil people because they do not believe a human being comes into existence at conception nor do they believe abortion is homicide.” However, the Satanic Temple failed to show any medical harm caused by the abortion ban and ignored the harm that late-term abortion inflicts on the baby who is biologically a living human.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita hailed the decision as a reinforcement of the state’s pro-life stance. “This lawsuit was ridiculous from the start, but this unanimous court decision is a critical victory because it continues to uphold our pro-life law that is constitutionally and legally rock-solid,” Rokita said in a statement.
By most standards, a challenge to a medical board on the ethics of a procedure would seem like a fool’s errand just as what is illustrated in the Indiana case. It is not a matter of common sense or common law, but a matter of worldview and political will.