Satanic Temple Protests Texas’ Fetal Burial Law With Semen-Covered Socks
(Azgek/iStockPhoto)
When Indiana passed a law earlier this year requiring funerals for aborted or miscarried fetuses, women across Indiana began a protest campaign called “Periods for Pence,” in which they called the office of Indiana Governor and now Vice-Presdent-elect Mike Pence to report their periods, on the grounds that fertilized eggs can be expelled from the body during a person’s normal menstrual cycle, and she might never even know. Any period could be a miscarriage, so to be on the safe side of Indiana’s embryo funeral law, thousands of pissed-off Indiana women called to report their periods.
Now that Texas has picked up Indiana’s idea and run with it, a similar protest has been enacted, but this one is a smidge more graphic, as it involves mailing actual bodily fluids to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to protest Texas’ fetal burial law.
According to Broadly, the … ahem … “Cum Rags for Congress” protest was dreamed up as a “crass counter-attack” by Satanic Temple spokesperson Jex Blackmore, who allegedly mailed a semen-covered sock to Governor Greg Abbott along wiht a note that said, “These r babies. Plz bury.”
Blackmore told Broadly’s Callie Beusman that she takes offense at the idea that the state of Texas could force people to participate in an unnecessary ritual as part of an abortion procedure. Abortion is a medical procedure, a funeral is not. So she is protesting by sending semen on the grounds that sperm have the potential to become human beings.
The protest is pretty out-there, but that’s by design. Blackmore said she intended this to be disgusting, crass, absurd, and a waste of resources, just like the regulation she’s protesting.
Blackmore acknowledges that sending bodily fluids through the mail might not be entirely legal, but asserts that sending a sock covered in shampoo gets the point across just as well.
Taking a cue from the “Periods for Pence” protestors, an egg shed by the body is a potential life, too, so menstrual fluid or tampons seem like they’d fit thematically with Blackmore’s protest.
The Satanic Temple has an intentionally shocking name, but they do not actually worship a supernatural Satan. They’re really are more of a snarky, heavily satirical organization of progressive-minded, secular people who are committed to egalitarianism, bodily autonomy, and the separation of church and state. Previous efforts have included a movement to start their own “After School Satan Club” to promote science, logic, and egalitarianism in schools that are allowing evangelical Christian after-school programs to proselytize to students at public schools. They also do things like protest the erection of Christian religious icons on public buildings like courthouses and government buildings by demanding the buildings put up statues of Satan, too. If the government is going to allow one religion to post symbols on government buildings, logic holds that they’d have to extend the same rights to all religions, including Satanists. We’re probably going to see a lot more from these guys in the coming years.
