Government · Statewide · IN · September 9, 2026
Indiana Supreme Court to Rule if Religion Can Exempt Abortion Ban
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The whole case is Rule 4 in operation: the ACLU of Indiana is not attacking Indiana's abortion ban with a privacy or equality claim but with Indiana's own 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Ind. Code ch. 34-13-9), the statute conservative legislators passed to protect believers from state coercion. The plaintiffs' argument that the ban's existing carve-outs — life, health, rape, incest, IVF embryo destruction — prove the state does not really treat its interest as compelling is the same move: hold the lawmakers to the exact terms of the book they wrote. The tactic works only because there is a real gap between how broadly RFRA was written and how narrowly its sponsors expected it to be used.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Counter-Rule 4 means closing that gap honestly rather than complaining that the law is being read as written. Read Indiana's RFRA text (Ind. Code ch. 34-13-9) and the exceptions in the abortion statute (Ind. Code § 16-34-2-1) side by side this month, and be able to say in your own words why a life-of-the-mother exception is not the same kind of thing as a belief-based exemption. Then apply the same standard to your own side: if you would want RFRA to shield a pro-life pregnancy center, say plainly that you accept it also shields claims you dislike, and argue the compelling-interest question instead of asking for a statute that only protects your friends.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The fight has been moved off the ground pro-life advocates know — when life begins, what the ban says — and onto ground most of them have never worked: RFRA doctrine (substantial burden, compelling interest, least restrictive means), organizational standing, ripeness, class certification, and appellate procedure. The state's own filings show it: much of Attorney General Rokita's appeal is procedural, and the case reached the Indiana Supreme Court in April 2026 only after the state asked the court to bypass the Court of Appeals. A church member who can argue the sanctity of life fluently can still be silenced by a question about whether a certified class can hold an injunction.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Counter-Rule 3 is preparation before you are on the spot. Before the ruling lands, read the Court of Appeals decision of April 4, 2024 (Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1, No. 22A-PL-2938) and Judge Klineman's March 5, 2026 permanent injunction, and write down in one page what a 'substantial burden' and a 'compelling interest' actually mean in that statute. Watch the September 10 oral argument on the court's livestream rather than relying on summaries. When asked something procedural you don't know, say 'I don't know — I'll find out and come back,' and then do it.
Rule 10
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
This is a four-year attrition campaign, and the calendar is itself the strategy: filed in September 2022, preliminary injunction granted before the ban took effect, affirmed April 4, 2024, transfer denied December 10, 2024, permanent injunction March 5, 2026, argument September 10, 2026. Through nearly all of that time the ban has been unenforceable against the plaintiff class regardless of who eventually wins on the merits. Constant pressure over years, not a single decisive filing, is what has produced that result.
Counter-Rule 10 · The Long Game
Plan in decades against a campaign built on attrition. Succession and endurance beat any single victory.
Counter-Rule 10 is to plan on the same timescale instead of treating tomorrow's argument as the end. Decide now who in your congregation will read the opinion when it issues and report it accurately, and put a standing item on the calendar — not a one-off rally — for pregnancy-center support and legislative follow-up over the next several years. Expect that whichever way this comes out, the losing side files again; budget your attention and giving for a decade, not for a news cycle.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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