Red state's extreme abortion ban crumbles in court as judge dismantles stunning logic
Source: Raw Story
March 5, 2026 8:04PM ET
A superior court judge in Indiana has blocked the state's near-total abortion ban from being enforced — because it isn't an absolute ban.
The case, resting on a novel legal theory, was brought in Marion Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeking a religious exception from the abortion ban under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would effectively allow those who disagree with the law to not follow it.
As evidence that the law applies, the ACLU pointed to the ban's exception for rape survivors — a common provision many Republican lawmakers slip into abortion bans in an attempt to make them more palatable to the general public.
But allowing abortion in cases of rape doesn't do anything to advance the state's given reason for the legislation, argued the ACLU — namely, to protect the unborn as human life. Therefore, the law doesn't have a compelling interest for existing outside of the religious beliefs of the lawmakers who made it, and it follows therefore that, just as it doesn't bind survivors of rape, it shouldn't bind people whose sincerely held religious beliefs actually endorse or require abortion in certain circumstances. Judge Christina Klineman ruled in favor of this argument.
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/indiana-2675596829/
Link to ACLU PRESS RELEASE - Indiana Court Grants Permanent Injunction in ACLU of Indiana Religious Freedom Challenge to Abortion Ban
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://live-awp-indiana.pantheonsite.io/app/uploads/2026/03/Proposed-Order-3.pdf
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"But Jesus told me so" was never a good argument for banning abortion across the board.
