BOISE, Idaho – For a second time, the United States District Court for the District of Idaho dismissed a lawsuit by The Satanic Temple against an Idaho law largely banning abortion.
The lawsuit, which began in 2022 in response to Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which made most cases of abortion a crime, was dismissed by the U.S. District court in 2024, appealed by The Satanic Temple, and .
However, the Ninth Circuit Court’s dismissal included a request to the District Court to determine whether or not the Satanic Temple would have the chance to amend and re-submit its lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge David C. Nye, who wrote the original dismissal, doubled down on his previous dismissal and declared that the lawsuit would not be allowed the possibility for amendments because “TST’s claims lack merit and could not be saved by any amendment.”
The Satanic Temple’s Lawsuit had attempted to clarify the rights of “Involuntarily Pregnant Women,” a group it classified as women who become pregnant without consent due to failure of birth control.
The Satanic Temple cited the fifth, thirteenth and fourteenth amendment, arguing that forcing involuntarily pregnant women to give birth unlawfully takes the “economic value of a woman’s uterus,” “[subjects] women forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to slavery” and denied them equal protection of laws.
Judge Margaret McKeown, who wrote the opinion for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, did not address any of the arguments. Instead, she wrote that The Satanic Temple failed to demonstrate that the law had any effect on its members.
“TST’s concern for its members is evident—but it still bears the burden to demonstrate an injury in fact,” she wrote.
Nye’s final dismissal affirmed the lawsuit’s failure to demonstrate injury, but went further, saying that “even assuming arguendo TST could find a plaintiff who legitimately had standing, the claims themselves were not cognizable.”
“TST’s efforts to shoehorn its disagreements with Idaho’s abortion statues into constitutional claims rang of the classic phrase ‘trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.’ It simply does not work,” Nye wrote.
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador released a statement about the lawsuit’s final dismissal, saying: “Idaho’s pro-life laws protect both mothers and unborn children, and this decision confirms those protections are constitutionally sound. The Satanic Temple’s attempt to manufacture constitutional violations out of disagreement with Idaho’s values has been rejected at every level.”
NonStop Local has reached out to The Satanic Temple for comment.
