Weissmann, J.
The Indiana General Assembly passed a law criminalizing most abortions in the summer of 2022. Before the law took effect, five anonymous Indiana women and Hoosier Jews for Choice (collectively, Plaintiffs) challenged the law in a complaint they filed against the Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana and the prosecutors in Marion, Lake, Monroe, St. Joseph, and Tippecanoe counties (collectively, the State). [Footnote omitted.] Plaintiffs alleged that the law, now codified as Indiana Code § 16-34-2-1 (Abortion Law), violated their rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). See Indiana Code § 34-13-9-1 et seq.
The trial court granted Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, halting enforcement of the Abortion Law against Plaintiffs until their underlying RFRA claim could be resolved. The State appeals that ruling as well as the trial court’s later certification of this case as a class action. The State claims the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter the preliminary injunction because Hoosier Jews for Choice lacks standing and Plaintiffs’ claims are not ripe for adjudication. The State also claims that Plaintiffs failed to prove the requirements for a class action or for a preliminary injunction, and, in any case, the injunction is too broad.
We conclude that Hoosier Jews for Choice has associational standing, that Plaintiffs’ claims are ripe, and that the class action certification was not an abuse of discretion. Although we find the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting injunctive relief, the preliminary injunction is overly broad because it enjoins enforcement of the Abortion Law in ways that do not violate RFRA. We therefore affirm but remand for entry of a narrower injunction. [Footnote omitted.]
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The State raises five primary issues, which we resolve as follows:
I. The issues are justiciable. Hoosier Jews for Choice has associational standing to raise its members’ RFRA challenges to the Abortion Law. Plaintiffs’ claims are ripe, although the Plaintiffs are not now pregnant or seeking an abortion.
II. The trial court properly certified the case as a class action.
III. A preliminary injunction was merited.
IV. The scope of the injunction was overbroad so we remand to the trial court for adjustment.
I. Justiciability of Plaintiffs’ Claims
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A. Standing of Hoosier Jews for Choice
We first turn to the State’s claim that Hoosier Jews for Choice lacks standing…
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i. Associational Standing Is Widely Recognized
RFRA confers standing on an organization under certain circumstances. It provides that “[a] person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a [RFRA] violation” may assert a RFRA claim. Ind. Code § 34-13-9-9. A “person” in this context includes “[a]n organization,” “a religious society,” and “a group organized and operated primarily for religious purposes.” Ind. Code § 34-13-9-7(2).
Though Hoosier Jews for Choice is a “person” under RFRA, the organization does not allege any violation of its own RFRA rights. Without more, Hoosier Jews for Choice cannot meet the “irreducible minimum” standing requirements. See Solarize, 182 N.E.3d at 216. Hoosier Jews for Choice instead asserts a cognizable injury to its members in the form of RFRA violations. Hoosier Jews for Choice therefore claims associational standing, a concept rarely applied in Indiana state courts but long ago accepted by federal courts and many state courts.
Associational standing, a 20th century offshoot of third-party standing, “is largely a creature of federal law, and permits an association to sue on behalf of one or more of its members” under certain circumstances. Bd. of Comm’rs of Union Cnty. v. McGuinness, 80 N.E.3d 164, 169 (Ind. 2017). Sometimes described as “representational” or “organizational” standing, this concept was at the forefront of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision last summer in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 230 (2023) (ruling in favor of an organization with associational standing that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions processes violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution).
In recognizing the associational standing of the plaintiff, a non-profit organization alleging injury to its student members and not to itself, the Court relied on the test enunciated in Hunt v. Wash. State Apple Advert. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977). Under the Hunt test, which is used extensively in the federal court system, an organization has standing to raise the claims of its members when: “(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.” Id.
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Our Supreme Court has neither explicitly recognized nor denounced associational standing. Cf. Bd. of Comm’rs of Union Cnty, 80 N.E.3d at 170 (assuming, without deciding, that associational standing was available). [Footnote omitted.] We therefore follow the lead of the two panels of this Court, many other state courts, and the federal courts and recognize the doctrine of associational standing. We also find that the Hunt test, relied upon by these courts in pure or altered form, is the proper test for determining whether associational standing exists.
ii. Associational Standing Is Beneficial to the Pursuit of Justice
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iii. Trial Court Correctly Determined that Hoosier Jews for Choice Has Associational Standing
We reject the State’s claim that Hoosier Jews for Choice does not meet the requirements for associational standing. The first two Hunt requirements are easily met here. And though the third requirement is more difficult to assess, we ultimately find that Hoosier Jews for Choice has met it.
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B. Ripeness
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The essence of Plaintiffs’ claim is that the Abortion Law “severely burdens [their] sincere religious beliefs” under RFRA by banning abortions under circumstances when their “sincere religious beliefs . . . direct them to obtain an abortion.” Appellants’ Prelim. Inj. App. Vol. II, p. 61. We agree with the trial court that this claim is ripe.
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We agree that pregnancy, by its very nature, defies simple prediction. Some women become pregnant despite their use of contraceptives. Other women fail to become pregnant even when actively seeking that result. But Plaintiffs have alleged and presented evidence to support a substantial burdening of the exercise of their sincere religious beliefs in the form of altered sexual and reproductive patterns.
Due to their inability to obtain an abortion as their religious beliefs dictate, Anonymous Plaintiffs 1, 4, and 5 have alleged they are not attempting to become pregnant when they otherwise would. Anonymous Plaintiffs 1 and 2 report that they have severely decreased their sexual intimacy with their husbands due to concerns about becoming pregnant while the Abortion Law’s restrictions are in effect. Some members of Hoosier Jews for Choice also have altered their sexual and reproductive practices in response to the Abortion Law. We agree with Plaintiffs and the trial court that these changes show a substantial burdening of the religious exercise of Plaintiffs and that these allegations of existing harm from the Abortion Law render Plaintiffs’ lack of pregnancy irrelevant to ripeness.
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We conclude that Plaintiffs’ claims are ripe because they present at least the “ripening seeds of a . . . controversy,” if not an already existing “real or actual controversy,” that is based on facts, not “abstract possibilities.” See Holcomb, 187 N.E.3d at 1287; Planned Parenthood Ctr. of Tucson, Inc. v. Marks, 17 Ariz. App. 308, 312-13, 497 P.2d 534, 539 (1972) (finding in this pre-Roe v. Wade decision that a challenge to the constitutionality of statutes criminalizing abortion was justiciable, despite the lack of a pregnant petitioner, and rejecting the argument that the plaintiffs would have to wait to be prosecuted under the statute before the issues would be ripe).
II. Class Action Certification
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The State contends that Plaintiffs failed to prove all the class action certification requirements. We reject the State’s claim and find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s class action certification.
A. The Class is Sufficiently Definite
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B. The Class Satisfies Trial Rule 23(A) Requirements
The State also claims the trial court abused its discretion in certifying the litigation as a class action because the Plaintiffs did not meet any of the Trial Rule 23(A) requirements. We find no such deficiency.
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C. The Class Satisfies Trial Rule 23(B)(2) Requirements
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The injunction sought by Plaintiffs, as they assert in their brief, is essentially a religious exemption to the Abortion Law. Thus, a single injunction seemingly could provide final, appropriate relief for the entire class consistent with RFRA upon proof that the Abortion Law violates Plaintiffs’ rights under RFRA. This is no different from the injunctions approved in the servicemember’s RFRA challenges to vaccine mandates. See, e.g., Doster, 54 F.4th at 439-441 (rejecting claim that a single injunction would not afford relief to the class of servicemembers challenging vaccine mandates). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding the Trial Rule 23(B)(2) requirements met.
III. Preliminary Injunction
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A. Plaintiffs Have Shown a Reasonable Likelihood of Success
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The State offers two reasons why Plaintiffs’ RFRA claims are unlikely to succeed. First, the State asserts that Plaintiffs cannot prove that abortion is a “religious exercise” within the meaning of RFRA. Second, the State argues that the Abortion Law is the least restrictive means to achieve what the State views as its compelling interest in protecting the potential for life beginning at fertilization. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding the Plaintiffs’ RFRA claims are likely to succeed.
i. Plaintiffs Have Shown Pregnancy Termination Qualifies as a Religious Exercise
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The State has provided little authority—and none that we find persuasive—to support the more restrictive view that religious exercise does not encompass the pregnancy terminations at issue here. Plaintiffs’ claims, in fact, seem to be the other side of the Burwell coin. If a corporation can engage in a religious exercise by refusing to provide abortifacients—contraceptives that essentially abort a pregnancy after fertilization—it stands to reason that a pregnant person can engage in a religious exercise by pursuing an abortion. In both situations, the claimant is required to take or abstain from action that the claimant’s sincere religious beliefs direct. And in both situations, the claimant’s objection to the challenged law or regulation is rooted in the claimant’s sincere religious beliefs.
Again, “the ‘exercise of religion’ often involves not only belief and profession but the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts[.]” Smith, 494 U.S. at 877. Here, Plaintiffs have shown that the performance of a physical act—an abortion—is their religious exercise. Hoosiers have a long history of respecting religious diversity. See generally City Chapel, 744 N.E.2d at 448-49 (during a review of the history of religious liberties in Indiana, noting that “[t]he influx of settlers into Indiana reflected the whole range of religious belief and practice, and there was no religious unity from the beginning and denominations had no restraints” (internal quotations omitted))
Though people of varying faiths may view reproductive choices differently, the right to free exercise of religion acknowledges that “religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others” to bear protection. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 531 (1993) (quoting Thomas v. Rev. Bd. of Ind. Emp. Sec. Div., 450 U.S. 707, 714 (1981)). We therefore conclude that the trial court did not err in finding that Plaintiffs’ abortion when directed by their sincere religious beliefs is their exercise of religion. [Footnote omitted.]
ii. The State Has Not Established a Compelling Interest or that the Abortion Law is the Least Restrictive Means of Furthering that Compelling Interest
In its next attack on the trial court’s judgment, the State asserts that the Abortion Law is the least restrictive means of achieving the State’s alleged compelling interest in protecting the potential for life. The trial court found that the State had not established a compelling interest in enforcing the Abortion Law against Plaintiffs. Appellants’ Prelim. Inj. App. Vol. II, p. 52. The court also found that, even if a compelling interest existed, the State had not established that the Abortion Law was the least restrictive means of furthering the State’s compelling interest. Id. We agree with both conclusions.
a. The State Has Not Shown a Compelling Interest
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By ruling that the Indiana Constitution “protects a woman’s right to an abortion that is necessary to protect her life or to protect her from a serious health risk,” the Planned Parenthood Court essentially established one general circumstance in which a woman’s interest in an abortion outweighs any interest by the State in protecting the potential of life. Id. at 962. But the Court did not specify when the State’s interest outweighs a woman’s competing interest in terminating a pregnancy. According to the Court, “Hoosiers have generally delegated this responsibility to the General Assembly.” Id. at 980.
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But we need look no further than the language of the Abortion Law to determine that the General Assembly does not view the State’s compelling interest as beginning at fertilization. The Abortion Law exempts in vitro fertilization procedures from its scope, although there is the potential for life that might be destroyed in the process of this procedure. Ind. Code § 16-34-1- 0.5. That broad exemption suggests any compelling interest by the State is absent at fertilization.
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Given Cheaney’s questionable applicability here and the Abortion Law’s plain language permitting abortions at various stages of pregnancy, we conclude that the State has not shown a compelling interest in the protection of potential life beginning at fertilization.
b. Even if the State Established a Compelling Interest, It Failed to Show that the Abortion Law Was the Least Restrictive Means of Furthering that Interest
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The Abortion Law allows a conditional right to abortions “to prevent any serious health risk to the pregnant woman or to save the pregnant woman’s life.” Ind. Code §§ 16-34-2-1(a)(1)(A)(i), (3)(A). This amounts to an exception to the Abortion Law’s prohibitions based on a prioritization of the pregnant woman’s health over the survival of the zygote, embryo, or fetus. But that is the same sort of prioritization reflected in the Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs, albeit on a different scale.
Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs direct them to terminate their pregnancy “if their health or wellbeing—physical, mental, or emotional—were endangered by a pregnancy, pregnancy-related condition, or fetal abnormality.” Appellees’ Prelim. Inj. Br., p. 18. In other words, in accordance with Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs, the pregnant woman’s health must have precedence, with an abortion available even if, contrary to the Abortion Law: (1) the pregnancy is not life-threatening; (2) the pregnancy does not present a serious health risk as that term is used in the Abortion Law; or (3) the fetal abnormality is not lethal within the meaning of the Abortion Law.
Thus, the broader religious exemption that Plaintiffs effectively seek has the same foundation as the narrower exceptions already existing in the Abortion Law: all are based on the interests of the mother outweighing the interests of the zygote, embryo, or fetus. The religious exemption that Plaintiffs seek, based on their sincere religious beliefs, merely expands the circumstances in which the pregnant woman’s health dictates an abortion.
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B. Plaintiffs Must Prove Irreparable Harm, But They Met That Burden
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But the trial court’s alternative ruling—that Plaintiffs adequately showed irreparable harm—was justified by the evidence. The trial court found that absent a preliminary injunction, Plaintiffs would be irreparably harmed by the loss of their religious freedoms guaranteed by RFRA. A loss of First Amendment freedoms, which include the right to free exercise of religion, “for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976).
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C. The Trial Court Did Not Err in Finding the Balancing of Harms and Public Interest Weighed in Plaintiffs’ Favor
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Without a preliminary injunction, Plaintiffs will suffer the loss of their right to exercise their sincere religious beliefs by obtaining an abortion when directed by their religion and prohibited by the Abortion Law. They also have shown their sexual and reproductive lives will continue to be restricted absent the injunction and as a result of the Abortion Law. The opposing harm with an injunction is the loss of the potential for life represented by a zygote, embryo or fetus that will no longer exist if a Plaintiff terminates the pregnancy outside the parameters of the Abortion Law. Thus, Plaintiffs have shown existing harm in the form of reproductive and sexual restrictions whereas the harm to the public is conditional (that is, based on the prospect of pregnancy that may eventually result in a live birth). The trial court did not abuse its discretion in balancing the harms in favor of Plaintiffs.
We also find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s finding that the public interest favored entry of the preliminary injunction. As the trial court determined, statutory violations are against public interest and may support issuance of an injunction. See Short on Cash, 811 N.E.2d at 823. And in any case, injunctions protecting First Amendment freedoms are always in the public interest. U.S. Navy SEALs, 27 F.4th at 353 (citing Texans for Free Enter. v. Tex. Ethics Comm’n, 732 F.3d 535, 539 (5th Cir. 2013)).
IV. Breadth of Injunction
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We view the more reasoned approach to be remand for entry of a more narrowly tailored preliminary injunction…
We therefore affirm the trial court’s finding that Plaintiffs are entitled to a preliminary injunction and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
May, J., concurs.
Bailey, J., concurs with a separate opinion
Bailey, Judge, concurring.
…. In accordance with abundant religious liberty and the recognition of a pluralistic society, our Constitution further provides: “No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship[.]” IN Const. Art. 1, § 4. [165] Y et in this post-Dobbs world, our Legislature has done just that – preferred one creed over another. [Footnote omitted.] Based upon the premise that the State has a compelling interest in the outcome of a woman’s pregnancy arising at the very moment of conception, there is a codification of when life begins, something intensely debated among adherents to various religions. [Footnotes omitted.] Moreover, if I glean anything from the broad range of views on this concept of ensoulment contained in the amicus briefs, it is that there is truly no consensus about when ensoulment occurs. Rather, it is to be determined as an article of faith unique to each particular religious society. And despite the diversity of viewpoints on the concept of ensoulment, there is no claim among the amici that the termination of a pregnancy extinguishes the soul.