Cosmopolitan magazine is trash. Most sane people would agree. But sometimes Cosmopolitan unironically publishes something that horrifyingly illustrates just how far gone and evil our society, and the culture of death, is.

Case in point: Cosmo’s recent post on social media to promote its article highlighting “satanic abortion.” (I’m including screenshots just in case the magazine decides to delete them and try to cover its tracks.)

The piece quotes a 37-year-old woman with the pseudonym of Jessica as saying of her abortion that “the experience was just very supportive.”

Jessica’s abortion was facilitated by a New Mexico organization that calls itself The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic. WCIV-TV, an ABC affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina, refers to it as “a telehealth abortion clinic that mocks a Catholic judge who serves on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The article in Cosmopolitan describes the “satanic abortion” as follows:

First, you find a quiet space. Bring a mirror if you can. Just before taking the medication, gaze at your reflection and focus on your personhood. Home in on your intent, your responsibility to you. Take a few deep, relaxing breaths. When you’re ready, read the following tenet aloud: One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

Take the medication and immediately afterward, recite, Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

Later, once your body expels the aborted tissue, return to your reflection. Focus again on your personhood, your power in making this decision. Complete the ritual by reciting a personal affirmation: By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done.

Cosmo’s Instagram post on the satanic abortion says that “mirror or mantra’s or not, [the Satanic Abortion Clinic’s] point is that your abortion should focus on your autonomy in making this decision. Patients can include as many loved ones as they’d like, or light candles or even dress up—whatever makes them feel empowered.”

There is so much evil here, it is truly hard to know what to unpack first.

Let’s start with the clinic itself, and then we’ll delve into the “satanic abortion” ritual.

The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic

Per a press release from The Satanic Temple on launching the online abortion clinic in February, it named the abortion facility The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic to imply that the conservative Supreme Court justice should have been aborted. (Alito wrote the high court’s majority opinion in 2022 striking down its Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 and the idea of abortion on demand, thus sending the issue of abortion back to the states.)

“In 1950, Samuel Alito’s mother did not have options, and look what happened,” said Malcolm Jarry, cofounder of The Satanic Temple, which is in Salem, Massachusetts. “Prior to 1973, doctors who performed abortions could lose their licenses and go to jail. The clinic’s name serves to remind people just how important it is to have the right to control one’s body and the potential ramifications of losing that right.”

It’s heartbreaking, but not one bit surprising, that Cosmopolitan is propagating the opinion of this organization that Alito is better off dead than alive. That’s where the culture of death has brought us.

The “Satanic” Abortion Riddled With Lies

But back to the so-called satanic abortion. It invokes “your personhood,” “your intent,” and “your responsibility to you,” Cosmo reports.

Interesting how abortion proponents categorically deny the personhood of the unborn, yet passionately recognize the personhood of the mother.

Similarly, “responsibility” is a good thing unless it is directed at caring for an innocent, unborn life.

The ritual also tells the pregnant woman that she is “inviolable,” which, according to Oxford Languages, means “never to be broken, infringed, or dishonored.”

Yet abortion, be it surgical or chemical, is one of the most infringing, dishonoring, violating experiences any woman could undergo.

What the Cosmopolitan article fails to mention is that many women suffer from mental and emotional duress following an abortion. A study of women who requested an induced abortion, published in the National Library of Medicine, found that of 1,514 respondents, “almost half reported traumatic experiences.” The prevalence of symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome was 23%.

While this satanic ritual might seem innocuous to some, it is riddled with lies. Lies about what abortion is, how it affects women, how it affects their sexual partners. The list goes on.

The Indisputable Science of Life

What’s ironic is that as this satanic ritual continues, it blatantly lies about scientific fact. It reads: “Take the medication and immediately afterward, recite, Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”

The level of self-contradiction here is unparalleled. Science has told us when life begins. It is indisputable.

At five weeks, an unborn baby’s heart begins pumping blood. At seven weeks, arms and legs begin to form. At 13 weeks, an unborn baby has unique fingerprints. At 15 weeks or earlier, a baby in the womb can feel pain. At 18 weeks, a baby can hear his or her mother’s heartbeat.

The science is clear. It’s Cosmo and The Satanic Temple that are distorting scientific facts to promote abortion.

The last part of the “satanic abortion” ritual reads:

Later, once your body expels the aborted tissue, return to your reflection. Focus again on your personhood, your power in making this decision. Complete the ritual by reciting a personal affirmation: By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done.

How tragic and heartbreaking is it that the ending “affirmation” is a celebration of death?

To many people of faith, abortion is satanic. It celebrates death as a choice. A choice that kills an innocent life in the name of “my body,” “my blood,” and “my will,” and wounds the mental, emotional, spiritual, and sometimes physical well-being of the mother as well.

The death of the innocent should never be a mere choice, much less a celebrated one.

Rachel del Guidice works in communications and media in Washington, D.C. She previously was a congressional reporter and podcast host for The Daily Signal.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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