It is likely that anyone with the most casual knowledge of Satanism assumes all Devil worshippers are pro-choice. For the Abrahamic fundamentalist this is putting it lightly—they believe child sacrifice is the central act of Satanic worship. The ubiquitous role that accusations of infanticide played in the Satanic Panic is easily enough discovered by anyone who makes even a cursory read of the related literature of the time. Satanists kill babies, the fundamentalist says, and the children they let live they molest. Every evangelical Christian in the 80s knew that.

Among those who are actually Satanically inclined, the pro-choice position is assumed not because of a wanton desire to destroy children, but mostly because of the Devil’s romantic association with feminine liberty. We see this expressed most visibly in the Satanic Temple’s tenet of bodily autonomy and their vociferous support of so-called reproductive rights. To this faction, anti-abortion attitudes and legislation are the products of Judeo-Christian indoctrination and the machinations of the patriarchy, which they would mostly see as being synonymous. Male authorities want to control women’s bodies and shouldn’t be allowed to. End of story.

It will perhaps come as a surprise to some that support for open, on-demand abortion access has not been, nor is now, a universal belief among Satanists. Aleister Crowley speaks negatively of it in his Confessions. Anton LaVey wrote against abortion in multiple periods of his life. In 1971, LaVey wrote:

Abortion is unnatural and unnecessary. Man is the only animal who practices such wanton killing of its young. And yet man considers himself emancipated and more highly evolved than any other species. Legalized abortion would have a disastrously demoralizing effect on our society, for it would further instill the notion that human life is one of the cheapest commodities in the world.

LETTERS FROM THE DEVIL, MARCH 21, 1971

In our own time, groups like the Satanic Thulian Society hold to this tenet in their moral code:

The act of abortion is an affront: A woman’s womb is of the utmost sacred of temples. For within, the Elixir of Life is created and allowed to take root and flourish. Cursed are they who willfully destroys that life that has grown within the sacred temple of womanhood. For if such a gift is not desired, then let the temple be rendered barren and devoid of power.

“LEX SATANICUS”

So, how should the Diabolist think about abortion? Is the Satanic Temple correct? Is abortion a woman’s right, full stop? Or are LaVey and those inspired by his line of thinking correct to consider abortion a tragedy that the Satanist should avoid participating in?

Let’s start by saying that I agree with some of the Satanic Thulian Society’s (STS) initial premises. Another of their moral tenets, as outlined in their “Lex Satanicus,” is that “bodily autonomy is a privilege, not a right.” This is intentionally in conflict with the Satanic Temple’s assertion that bodily autonomy is an “inviolable right.” As the STS points out, societies of all types deems it right and necessary to deny people bodily autonomy if they prove—or are presumed likely to be—overly irresponsible with it. We incarcerate criminals, for example, and legally deny children the right to make many decisions until they are considered to be an appropriate age.

So, STS is right: bodily autonomy is not inviolable by any stretch. But I am not convinced that fact helps their argument in the long run. In their commentary on this tenet of autonomy being a privilege, the STS writes:

“Bodily Autonomy!”, is a myth cried by the enfeebled herd in a vain attempt to escape the blood splashed jaws of the predatory Satanist. It is by the rule of Fang & Claw, that the true Satanist guarantees their own Bodily Autonomy.

“LEX SATANICUS; AN IN DEPTH EXPLORATION”

They go on to say, “How often did LaVey preach of Lex Talionis and the Rule of Fang and Claw? Satan[ism] has always been based on the principle of Might is Right, and Social Darwinism.” All true and well and good, but it begs the question, by what fang and what claw has any fetus won the right to survive? The answer, of course, is none. It survives solely at the whim of its parents or, where abortion is banned, because of legal fiat. If might truly makes right, what is the problem with aborting a child the mother doesn’t want?

That aside, I also agree with the STS that the ability to birth children is a sacred gift that only the women in our species possess. It thus naturally follows that the womb is a uniquely holy part of a woman’s body. Brethren celebrate Lilith as the “Mother of Daemons,” and turn to her as a spiritual matron, precisely because of this fact.

In the modern world, Western culture is at best ambivalent when it comes to honoring motherhood. Young women are less likely to be taught that motherhood is a blessing as that it is a potential curse, robbing girls of their youth, wealth, and future career choices. The reasons for this attitude are complex. Some of it is on account of feminism’s—often justified—reaction against historical patriarchy. But crass materialism, financial considerations (baby’s cost a lot of money, after all), and an over-glorification of youth, leading to a subsequent reluctance to fully mature into adulthood, also play a role.

All this leads to many women being convinced that the last thing they want to be is a mother. Simultaneously, for a lot of the same reasons above, many men become convinced the last thing they want to be is a father. So, even if a woman desperately wants to be a mother, she may struggle to find a man who is willing or mature enough to be a mate. Tragically, the end result is that many women put off having children until they are at an age where it is both harder to find a mate, but also when the likelihood of birth defects are far greater than would have been if they were younger.

So, here I agree with STS; Devil Worshippers should celebrate and honor motherhood. We should encourage our young women and young men to see parenthood as a state that is sacred and generally desirable for most people.

All that said, I still find myself in disagreement with the conclusion that “abortion is an affront” to Satan or nature. The womb very well may be where the “Elixir of Life is created,” but, just as the Earth is both from whence our bodies come and to which they shall one day go, so too the womb is also a symbol of darkness and death. Lilith is both a bringer of life and of destruction. She creates children and kills them as well. The femme fatale and the nurturing mother are both sides of the coin that is femininity, and both are holy.

LaVey is factually incorrect in stating that only humans so “wantonly kill their young.” Filial (or parental) infanticide is observable in a whole spectrum of species. For example, pigs, rabbits, bass, storks, honey bees, non-human primates, and, yes, nearly all human cultures. The females of some species—mostly rodents—will reabsorb embryos or miscarry fetuses if they are exposed to the scent of unfamiliar males. Most importantly, this process doesn’t always occur against the females wishes. As the biologists S.D. Becker and J.L. Hurst write, pregnant rodent females will sometimes knowingly seek out the scent of novel males as a form of what we might call family planning. By seeking out novel, usually more dominant males during specific times of their pregnancies, these “females can exert a post-copulatory mate choice, reserving their reproductive resources for the highest-quality male.” *

As stated above, abortion has been practiced by a vast range of human cultures throughout our history. And while some cultures have indeed sought to curtail the practice through legislation, others have seen it as a legitimate social tool. Many Greco-Roman philosophers, for example, saw abortion as serving a eugenic purpose. Plato in his Republic writes:

And then, as the children are born, they’ll be taken over by the officials appointed for the purpose, who may be either men or women or both, since our offices are open to both sexes. Yes. I think they’ll take the children of good parents to the nurses in charge of the rearing pen situated in a separate part of the city, but the children of inferior parents, or any child of the others that is born defective, they’ll hide in a secret and unknown place, as is appropriate.

In his “Politics,” Plato’s student Aristotle writes:

As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live, but that on the ground of an excess in the number of children, if the established customs of the state forbid this (for in our state population has a limit), no child is to be exposed, but when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation.

While the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote:

Mad dogs we knock on the head; the fierce and savage ox we slay; sickly sheep we put to the knife to keep them from infecting the flock; unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal. Yet it is not anger, but reason that separates the harmful from the sound.“ON ANGER”

LaVey and the STS argue that advancements in contraception make abortion an unacceptable option for Satanists. We agree that preventing an unwanted pregnancy in the first place is preferable, but birth defects are—for obvious reasons—not detectable until after conception. Eugenically speaking, abortion is as necessary a tool as it ever was. Neither is contraception entirely foolproof. While the STS may be correct that the vast majority of abortions are not sought out as a result of rape, incest, or health concerns (whether those of the fetus or the mother), from the Diabolist’s understanding of what “responsibility to the responsible” means this is irrelevant. For the Devil worshipper, getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy is as legitimate a means of “taking responsibility” as is fobbing a child off to an orphanage. An argument could be made that abortion is taking actually taking more personal responsibility than expecting someone else to take care of your unwanted baby.

So, while Brethren might disagree with how the Satanic Temple frames the abortion issue, in the end we side with a staunchly pro-choice stance. This essay has went on long enough, so to wrap it up I want to be explicit about Diabolism and its relationship to abortion.

  • Motherhood is a sacred role, though it does requires sacrifice. Self-overcoming is very much an infernal virtue, however, and most women (and men) will find parenthood to be a source of joy and fulfillment because, not in spite, of the hardships involved. For this reason, the decision to abort should not be taken lightly.
  • Because motherhood is sacred, the womb is one of the most sacred parts of a woman’s body. It is not the only sacred part, though, and in some women it may not be the most sacred. An individual’s purpose in life cannot be reduced to or made a servant of a single biological function.
  • Satanic women have long used their sex and sexual appeal as a means of power and influence. This is natural and good. Contraception and abortion are legitimate means for a witch to ensure that the tool of sex achieves their personal ends. No one else’s blessing or permission is needed for a woman to claim her body as her own, though she must have the strength and cunning to make it so.
  • Life and death are equally sacred and equally part of what it means to embody the divine feminine.

This is the truth as the Brethren of the Morningstar see it.

*See Becker and Hurst’s article, “Female behaviour plays a critical role in controlling murine pregnancy block”.