Judge Christina Klineman has found that a sincere religious belief that unborn children are not persons with a right to life defeats Indiana’s law against abortion. The decision is a travesty, repeatedly bending the law to justify its conclusion.

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Both of the key distortions involve the state’s religious freedom law. Like federal law on religious freedom, the Indiana law requires that government policies that a) impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religion must b) do so in the least restrictive way c) to advance a compelling governmental interest. Klineman uses both a and b to reduce protections for unborn human beings.

She first finds that banning abortion places a burden on the exercise of religion — even though none of the plaintiffs even asserts a religious duty to have any abortion that the state has forbidden. Then she finds that the state’s exceptions to its abortion law, such as for pregnancies that result from rape, mean that its interest in protecting prenatal life is not compelling.

This is absurd. A brief in a related case uses an analogy to explain why: If a law banned the breaking of bones but allowed it for legitimate medical reasons, it would also — on the judge’s reasoning — have to allow it for parents who had genuine religious reasons for considering bone-breaking a legitimate method of discipline.

Luckily there are no Aztec practitioners of human sacrifice around to run a test case of their own before this judge.

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