November 7, 2023
What John Oliver gets wrong about The Satanic Temple and abortion rights
“Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic” is a funny name — and a distraction from what’s actually going on with TST’s New Mexico Telehealth Clinic
In the most recent episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”, he made a mention of a particular publicity stunt by a certain satanic for-profit business-cum-church.
In so doing, he demonstrated perfectly the way The Satanic Temple’s grift works, and the limitations of “Last Week Tonight” as an actual news program rather than what it is: a popularizer and disseminator of the work done by others.
If the show had done a proper investigation, they would have immediately found huge red flags involving the Temple’s clinic that call into question its legitimacy entirely. Since they did not, we’ll show you what so many have missed despite being out in the open.
First, we’re going to show how at its most basic and fundamental level, the The Satanic Temple’s clinic is vulnerable to any legal challenge or government investigation due to its use of false information in its corporate registration as TST owners Doug Misicko and Cevin Soling continue to inappropriately use pseudonyms on legal documents.
Next, we’re going to look at the way the clinic fits into TST’s pattern of claiming it can help people in states with abortion restrictions and bans despite never being able to deliver on that promise, a false claim the Temple literally advertises and profits off of.
Finally, we’re going to talk about how the Temple’s use of a corporation that has tax-exempt church approval and unwillingness to be financially transparent makes it impossible to keep track of exactly how much money is involved, especially since every role of corporate governance is filled by the same two men, Soling and Misicko, and their pseudonyms.
JOHN OLIVER: But also, note that we can still act here. Some have taken some small steps in the last year that are, if nothing else, immensely satisfying.
Like this one that was covered by a Catholic news network.
TRACY SABOL: An international group named after Satan will soon open its first abortion business in the United States.
The Satanic Temple, which claims to not believe in a literal Satan, will provide telehealth screenings and prescribe abortion pills for patients in New Mexico. The name of the soon-to-be facility? The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic.
(AUDIENCE CHEERS)
JOHN OLIVER: Incredible. Very well played. Now, is that gonna fix everything? No, of course it isn’t. But when it comes to responding to such wide spreading devastation, you could do a lot worse than the single best “your mom” joke of all time. Especially when you add in that one of the group’s co-founders even said, “In 1950, Samuel Alito’s mother did not have options, and look what happened.”
That seems like pretty high praise from someone who has become a trusted source to many liberals in the United States, and the show moves on without further comment on it. A sick burn, a good joke, and nothing more to be seen or questions to be asked afterward.
Indeed, from this you would not know that The Satanic Temple has spent years publicly misrepresenting what it can actually provide to pregnant people in need of help and literally profiting off of it, all while fundamentally jeopardized the legitimacy of this specific telehealth clinic by utilizing fake names on government documents for its New Mexico corporations registry.
The Satanic Temple, Inc.
Doing Business As:
“Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic Inc. / TST Health Inc.”
The use of “CT Corporation System” as a local registered agent is actually standard for an out-of-state corporation, even if the lack of a local-to-New-Mexico physical address beyond the registered agent service ought to raise some eyebrows.
However, as admitted in court depositions, “Malcolm Jarry” is just the pseudonym of TST co-owner Cevin Soling; in addition, despite listing two different addresses and listing him twice, “Lucien Greaves” is the same person as Douglas Misicko.
Doing this is almost certainly literally perjury.
As has come up in court for them before:
Q. You are identified as the president of The Satanic Temple Inc. in Exhibit 19?
A. Correct.
Q. And you are identified as the clerk of The Satanic Temple Inc. in Exhibit 19. True?
A. Correct. Yeah.
Q. And reading the actual text of that text box, it looks like you held a — the — the president and the clerk held a meeting on May 23, 2019 and that by a vote of one decided to amend the articles of incorporation. Is that right?
A. Correct.
Q. And if you’d turn to Exhibit 2 — or — I’m sorry. Strike that. If you’d turn to page 2 of Exhibit 19.
A. Is it this one we’re on?
Q. Same — Same tab —
A. All right.
Q. — page 2. That you, as the clerk, signed Exhibit 19 under penalties of perjury. Is that correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Also as the president, slash, vice president. True?
A. Yeah.
Q. And you stated under penalty of perjury when you filed Exhibit 19 with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that at least two thirds of the members, slash, directors — I’m reading from that text box again on page 1 — legally qualified to vote in the meetings of the corporation made the decision to amend the articles of organization. True?
A. Yes. Correct.
Q. And so mathematically you would agree with me that only one member could comprise at least two thirds of the legally qualified members. True?
A. Well, now, this was a discussion between me and Malcolm Jarry. We’re the only two. So I mean we both knew we were doing it and both approved it with the lawyer we were working with. So that would be 100 percent really.
Q. Okay. Well, the — the document that you filed, Exhibit 19, with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under penalty of perjury states that there was a vote of one. Correct?
A. Yeah. I would just say that’s incorrect. I mean Malcolm was not unaware of this — of — that this process was taking place. We were both in agreement so that was — I’m not sure why it’s filed that way.
Q. Okay. So there were — as of May 24, 2019 there were two members or directors qualified to vote in meetings of the corporation?
A. Correct. Yeah.
Q. Were — Have there ever been more than two directors of the corporation identified in matters?
A. There have not.
To repeat: You do not get to lie and use a fake name for yourself on government documents, particularly documents establishing legal ownership of your corporation.
In any proper legal challenge to The Satanic Temple’s clinic, including anyone who treats TST’s marketing as credible and wants to use it as a shield against abortion bans, this would be found out and it would absolutely put the entire endeavor in jeopardy.
Of course, it gets worse because of how this clinic has been talked about by naïve people, helped out by The Satanic Temple itself, of course.
Here’s what the Temple says on its website about this clinic, emphasis added:
Q: Abortion is illegal where I live. Can I still get an abortion with TST Health?
A: Abortion is legal in New Mexico. Regardless of where you live, if you are in the state of New Mexico during your video consultation and when you perform your abortion ritual, you will have abided by the law. However, if you travel to a state where abortion is illegal and need follow-up care, there may be some risks. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to know how state laws will be enforced. We believe that the religious nature of our care neutralizes this risk, but state courts must affirm this, and we are working toward attaining that confirmation.
As now-deceased abortion-access advocate Mia Raven said in reaction to the claim in February 2023, “What the entire fuck? Alabama will put you under the jail.”
Since 2020, here are the kinds of billboards TST has run around the country and in its Facebook ads in bids for attention and while soliciting money:
“Our religious Abortion Ritual Averts Many State Restrictions”.
Is there any truth behind this claim?
When The Satanic Temple sued a billboard company that was unwilling to run that demonstrably false advertisement, TST owner Cevin Soling had to admit in his deposition that he was not aware of any examples where Satanism had been successfully used to avert a state restriction on abortion, including their own previous attempts:
Q. Can you tell me what the basis for this statement was?
A. Well, the idea is that this is attached to a religious practice for us, so we’d be utilizing religious liberty laws for an exemption from state restrictions.
Q. Anything else?
A. Perhaps. Can you — can you specify?
Q. Pretty broad. Let me ask you a more specific question. When making this statement, was TST aware of any situation in which a clinic exempted someone from an abortion requirement imposed by state law because they were participating in the Satanic abortion ritual?
A. No. I — as far as I know, we’re the first to — to press this kind of claim in this way.
Q. When making this statement, was TST aware of any — I’m sorry — The Satanic Temple. Was The Satanic Temple aware of any situation in which a clinic exempted someone from an abortion-related requirement imposed by state law because of their Satanic beliefs in general?
A. No. But we feel that our position is perfectly in line with the law, and I find it impossible to see the law coming to any other conclusion than that this is a valid claim.
Q. When making this statement, was TST aware of any situation in which a court found that someone was exempt from an abortion requirement imposed by state law because they were participating in the Satanic abortion ritual?
A. No. This is — this is a first.
Q. And is The Satanic Temple aware of any situation in which a court has found that someone was exempt from an abortion requirement imposed by state law because of their Satanic beliefs in general?
A. Not — not to our awareness.
As of November 2023, The Satanic Temple has lost six (6) abortion-ban challenges, lost them in state and in federal court, lost them at the district court, appellate court, and supreme courts. The Satanic Temple is very bad at court cases.
Specifically, as Soling was forced to admit, TST has never helped someone avert a state law restricting abortion. But they have gotten lots of media attention and then fundraised heavily off of the idea that they can.
How much? It’s very tough to say because “The Satanic Temple, Inc.” d/b/a “TST Health Inc.” and “Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic Inc.” is not a regular nonprofit: it’s a tax-exempt church. And as a tax-exempt church, it is under no legal requirement to report its finances.
John Oliver famously created “Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption” in 2015 to highlight the problems inherent with this, so you might argue that TST is just doing the same thing and attempting to bring awareness to a problem with the U.S. tax code.
Except that Oliver shut his corporation down after a month and reported its finances, meanwhile “The Satanic Temple Inc.” chugs along year after year soliciting money and providing no financial transparency about how much money is coming in or where it’s being spent. (Say, pursuing various SLAPP actions against ex-members; again, Oliver would know something about being on the receiving end of one of those.)
Of course it gets even more complicated.
The Satanic Temple’s owners have been promoting all kinds of merchandise for their clinic as well.
But the merch lacks the “tax-deductible” notification, which is the only way on TST’s website to distinguish purchases benefitting the for-profit “United Federation of Churches LLC d/b/a ‘The Satanic Temple’ ” from its nonprofit “The Satanic Temple (Inc.)“.
How much money did The Satanic Temple bring in specifically for this telehealth clinic based on its fundraising campaigns? We don’t know, and TST’s owners won’t tell you.
How many people did The Satanic Temple actually help with its telehealth clinic? We don’t know — although we did get some idea from TST’s failed Indiana abortion-ban lawsuit where TST indicated “over two dozen” people in a state with existing abortion clinics where abortion was legal had been able to be helped between February and June 2023.
INTERROGATORY NO. 3: Identify the number of persons to whom The Abortion Clinic has provided abortion inducing drugs, the type and quantity of such drugs provided, and the location where the drugs were provided during the relevant timeframe.
RESPONSE: Plaintiff objects to this Interrogatory on the grounds it seeks information beyond the scope of Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 26(b)(1). Subject to this objection and without waiving it, the Abortion Clinic has prescribed Abortifacients to over two dozen patients since it became operational in February 2023.
INTERROGATORY NO. 4: Identify each and every licensed physician employed by or contracted by The Abortion Clinic and in which state or states each identified physician is licensed.
RESPONSE: None
INTERROGATORY NO. 5: Describe in detail the specific expenses to which the money referenced in paragraph 19 of the Complaint was applied.
RESPONSE: Paying contractors employed by the Abortion Clinic, including attorneys, APRN’s and other support persons and the purchase of computers and telecommunications equipment and related services.
INTERROGATORY NO. 6: Identify each and every person from whom you intend to solicit sworn testimony for use as evidence relating to or concerning the existence, identity, status, or factual circumstances surrounding the involuntarily pregnant women referenced in paragraph 10 of the Complaint.
RESPONSE: Erin Helian. See also Plaintiff’s Confidential Response to Defendants’ First Set of Interrogatories.
“Erin Helian” is also a pseudonym, by the way, and note the lack of specificity about employees or expenses associated with clinic.
Now, as part of the same proceedings, The Satanic Temple claims that it spent “over $75,000 to establish and maintain an abortion clinic” but that number is rather suspiciously the exact number TST needed to claim for damages in order to meet federal jurisdictional requirements, and it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d want to see broken down in an audit because it claims it spent this in March 2023, prior to operating expenses actually kicking in.
So if that were true — and again, there’s no reason to think it is — it would mean that The Satanic Temple is one of the most inefficient ways for anyone to get fund abortions. This is the sort of thing the group Indigenous Women Rising pointed out at the time in response to TST’s announcement.
Even if The Satanic Temple were actually doing this with the best of intentions — and again, there’s no reason to think they are — it would be a bad idea to try to come in from Massachusetts and re-invent the wheel rather than support any of the established organizations operating in New Mexico who have local connections and years of experience with the challenges of funding abortions for people who desperately need them.
None of this is especially hidden information, you know. Even the court proceedings are out for the public to examine, especially for lawsuits that have gotten so much attention when they were announced, thanks to a TST press release, and at their close, thanks to the Indiana Attorney General’s press release.
But they do require doing work, asking follow up questions, and expecting more evidence in response to those questions than, “Just trust me, bro.”
So how did the “Last Week Tonight” segment happen? Well, going back to the video, have two news outlets here: the first is EWTN, and the second is the Albuquerque Journal.
The EWTN “News Nightly” segment comes from Feb. 3, 2023, the Albuquerque Journal article from Feb. 6, 2023.
If you look at both, the way they’re structured is taking a press release from The Satanic Temple and quoting from it and TST’s website. EWTN is a straightforwardly Catholic news agency, so it just talks to Father Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire Ministries for his take on the situation; the Albuquerque Journal is a mainstream, “objective” newspaper, so it quotes Elisa Martinez, founder and executive director of the New Mexico Alliance for Life; and it quotes Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, while adding in some more details about “The Satanic Temple Inc.” being an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Note that no one has yet done actual journalism here. The Catholic news agency has a bogeyman to beat up on and connect to abortion rights more generally, such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg getting a statue. The “straight news” outlet quotes from a press release then plays stenographer for the views of “both sides”; the deepest anyone goes is confirming that TST has an entity that can accept tax-deductible donations.
Sympathetic outlets like Hemant Mehta of “The Friendly Atheist“, meanwhile, offer no pushback and just look for more quotes from TST to dutifully transcribe with no pushback or further investigation. Whatever Mehta considers himself, he undoubtedly would not be this deferential to the claims of a Catholic or Pentecostal nonprofit behaving similarly.
The Satanic Temple’s press release and additional quotations from “pro” and/or “anti” abortion-rights figures who are basically unconcerned with any particular facts of the situation, just taking TST’s framing and reacting to it as they can be expected to from their corner of the media ecosystem. When “Last Week Tonight” does a short segment about it, John Oliver’s program leans on the work of others who upon deeper examination are actually doing very little work.
Larger media outlets like Jezebel and smaller, local ones like the Riverfront Times, on the other hand, have done in-depth looks at the Temple more generally and discovered that underneath the marketing there is not much of anything.
Prior to this clinic’s announcement, we did our own in-depth roundup of abortion access orgs, journalists, legal experts, and actual court outcomes. Again: when abortion rights folks are actually familiar with the specifics of The Satanic Temple and TST’s activities, the opinion is skeptical to outright hostile.
It would be really nice if John Oliver and his writing team were willing to apply the same level of skepticism to glorified press releases about The Satanic Temple that they do to many other topics.
But that takes work, and if local and partisan sources aren’t doing the yeoman’s work for them, even with HBO’s budget, “Last Week Tonight” is like to skip it and make mistakes.
By the way, if you think we’re being unfair here and subjecting The Satanic Temple to a special unfair standard, you really ought to be aware of their origins.
Literally the first thing TST did as a public entity was lie. If you were to take The Satanic Temple at their word in 2013, they were a theistic Satanic cult founded in 2006 by a guy named “Neil Bricke” and had members in Florida.
In reality, they were a prank documentary stunt that needed non-union, unpaid actors as extras.
Greaves swore to god (his, of course) that this was no joke.
But upon further review, it turns out that Greaves is pulling another kind of joke on us.
Greaves is listed as the casting director of a feature film called …wait for it…The Satanic Temple.
A casting call was posted on the web site Actors Access on Jan. 7 seeking non-union actors for no pay.
“We are seeking people from all walks of life, goths, grandparents, soccer moms, etc to be the followers of a charismatic yet down to earth Satanic cult leader,” the post stated. “The shoot will be on January 25th in downtown Tallahassee. Actors will be required to wear tasteful Satanic garb.”
The casting call said the movie was a mockumentary about the “nicest Satanic Cult in the world.” It was seeking actors for eight speaking roles “to play minions” and 10 featured extras. (The positions have since been filled).
So, wow. This didn’t sound like your run-of-a-mill political rally for satanists.
What’s really going on here?
“You hear the one about the pro-Scott satanic cult?”, Miami Herald, Jan. 16, 2013
Ever since TST began, when subjected to journalistic scrutiny, The Satanic Temple’s claims fall to pieces.
The Satanic Temple is not what it claims; it has a history of failure and harming the very people they claim to be helping; there is no financial transparency for what TST’s two owners are doing with the money they raise; and, just the opposite, everything we can glean from what is public is alarming.
We’ve been willing to do the work, to be what we would characterize as “deservedly skeptical”, and to compare the claims The Satanic Temple has made in one place versus ones they’ve made other places. We have limited resources and time as well, and we’re not professionals.
But you can, too. You can watch yourself when a piece of news comes in that tickles your fancy, like someone being rude to an odious Supreme Court justice, and ask yourself a few more questions about what claims are actually being made and whether you ought to have some follow-up questions about it.
For us the most important one remains, “Why doesn’t The Satanic Temple have any financial transparency or accountability for what it does with its donations, and why is it not more clear what is a for-profit sale benefiting the owners and what is a nonprofit donation?”
Maybe one day “Last Week Tonight” will do a follow-up segment on The Satanic Temple as a corrective, reading some of these court depositions and talking to actual abortion access orgs about TST.
But more likely, some local news outlet will have to break that story first.
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TST sued us from April 2020 to September 2024, and we are still here.
