WE ARE AGAINST FETAL MASS GRAVES FOR JESUS

You could have bet me almost anything that Texas’ proposed fetal burial law couldn’t get any creepier.

Even just the phrase “fetal burial law” already pushes a red line I didn’t even know was there. But along comes Texas’ deputy commissioner of health Jennifer Sims to blow that bet for me.

Rather than many costly individual burials, Sims testified to a judge that her department plans to bury fetal tissue in mass graves.

It’s a cost saver, you see. Mass graves are cheaper. (You don’t even want to know what that sentence did to our SEO rankings…)

Doing it this way, the expense runs as low as $2 per fetus, according to Texas officials.

 

Fetal mass graves. If you offered me all the money in the world, I couldn’t conceive of a more skin-crawling phrase or concept. Here’s a few tries:

• “Skeletal spasms.”
• “Circumcised appetizers.”
• “Pancreatic rash.”
• “Stepfather’s hidden burner cell phone.”
• “‘Used iron maiden sale.'”

See, that’s not even close. And I’m giving it my all here.

This ghastly plan rather undermines the state’s argument that this law is about the supposed dignity of fetal remains. It’s very hard to bulldoze anything into a desert for two dollars a head with dignity.

On the other hand, if we imagine that this is really about a thinly veiled religious agenda and ghoulish misogyny, it makes more sense…

Here’s why I bring this up: People sometimes complain that Satanism is counterproductive. It would be easier, they allege, to just be a “normal” secular or atheist group. Occult imagery scares people off, we’re told.

 

But for my part, I don’t find Satan scary. The occult seems harmless. Abortion certainly doesn’t disturb me. And neither does anyone’s right to mind their own uterus.

Fetal mass graves, on the other hand, will haunt me long into the wee hours of the night. If that’s the kind of material we’re competing with, I don’t feel like I have to audit myself one bit.

Note that Sims has to testify about these plans because the courts may throw the whole thing out. If you feel like making a statement in the meantime, consider the Satanic Temple’s (unofficial) “Cum Rags For Congress” program.

In case you haven’t heard, that’s where Temple members and allies mail cum-soaked socks to Texas officials requesting proper burial.

Yeah, that’s gross. But how could any of them judge you?

Originally published January 2017.