INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Supreme Court will take over a case that's pitted the state's near-total abortion ban against women whose religious beliefs require the procedure, skipping the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Friday's ruling from Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush came about six weeks after a Marion Superior Court judge granted a permanent injunction preventing Indiana from enforcing its near-total abortion ban against women whose religious beliefs require the procedure.
Marion Superior Court 1 Judge Christina R. Klineman found that the state’s abortion law, adopted after a special legislative session in August 2022, violates Indiana’s 2015 religious freedom restoration law by imposing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of the plaintiffs. Her ruling on the case filed in 2022 applied to Hoosiers who argue their faiths require or allow abortion access in circumstances not covered by the narrow medical exceptions currently outlined in state law.
Indiana’s near-total abortion ban came after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, allowing individual states to regulate or prohibit abortion.
Under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion unless it is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita in early March appealed the Marion County judge's decision.
In her March 4 ruling, Klineman rejected the state’s argument that it had a compelling interest in protecting prenatal life from the moment of fertilization. The court found the state’s approach inconsistent because the law allows for exceptions in cases of rape or incest and does not apply to in vitro fertilization procedures. Klineman wrote that the state’s preference for secular exceptions over religious ones demonstrated that the outright ban was not the least restrictive means of furthering its goals.
The chief justice's order said an Indiana appellate rule allows the state's highest court to move a case directly to the justices. The order also outlines when both sides in the case must submit arguments in writing this summer, and scheduled oral arguments before justices for 10 a.m. Sept. 10.
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