Updated Wednesday with attorney's comments.
ST. LOUIS • A group of Satan worshippers are suing Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster, taking issue with state abortion restrictions they say violate their religious beliefs.
The suit also says the law violates the establishment clause, intended to prohibit governmental endorsement of religion.
The suit was filed Tuesday in federal court in St. Louis on behalf of The Satanic Temple and a woman identified as Mary Doe, who lives in Missouri. It says that she is a member of The Satanic Temple, which is “an association of politically aware Satanists, secularists, and advocates for individual liberty.”
The suit is not using Doe’s real name “because this action involves her most intimate personal beliefs and she will be subject to personal attack for bringing this action,” the suit says.
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Missouri law requires abortion providers to give pregnant women information about the physical characteristics of the fetus and the fetus’ ability to feel pain by at least 22 weeks and it requires a 72-hour waiting period after counseling.
Doe got an abortion in Missouri at a Planned Parenthood clinic, the suit says.
She is a follower of the Satanic Tenets, which deny that life begins at conception or that having an abortion is morally wrong, the suit says.
The suit says the counseling and waiting period the law requires are not medically necessary for any woman or anyone who believes in the Satanic Tenets to make an informed decision on an abortion. The suit asks that the law be voided.
The law is “in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the State of Missouri is using its power to regulate abortion to promote some, but not all, religious beliefs that Human Tissue is, from conception, a separate and unique human being whose destruction is morally wrong.”
The law causes Doe and “pregnant members of The Satanic Temple to endure delay, doubt, guilt and shame when they exercise their religious beliefs to abort Human Tissue in accordance with the Satanic Tenets.”
Doe is represented by W. James MacNaughton of Newton, N.J.
MacNaughton said The Satanic Temple was prompted to file the lawsuit following the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that allows some companies with religious owners to decline to pay for contraception for employees.
"Hobby Lobby really put into the public consciousness the idea that one's religious belief can become a basis for being exempted from state regulations," MacNaughton said.
"Our view is the waiting period in Missouri and requirement for women to learn all the information about the physical characteristics of the fetus is simply preaching," he said. "The goal (of the lawsuit) is to get the restrictions eliminated across the board."
The Satanic Temple says it is pursuing a "reproductive rights campaign" on a crowdfunding website it set up to raise funds for legal fees. As of Wednesday morning, the month-long Indiegogo crowdfunding effort had raised $25,551.
"The Satanic Temple (TST) supports personal choice in the context of abortion and, as part of a multi-faceted Women’s Rights campaign, TST is offering religious exemptions from arbitrary, insulting, and outright harmful anti-abortion legislation that has been steadily encroaching across the nation," the group states on the website.
Lisa Brown of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this story.
