Memphis clinic to offer abortions under state ban
Choices Memphis Center for Reproductive Health, an abortion provider in Tennessee, says it will continue providing abortions under the narrow legal restrictions now in effect in the state.
The Memphis clinic is the only abortion provider still taking new patients in Memphis and is the only provider in Tennessee to confirm to The Commercial Appeal it is taking new patients, although two other providers have yet to confirm whether they are continuing the procedure under the new restrictions.
Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi said Tuesday it is suspending abortion services in Tennessee. The provider has clinics in Memphis and Nashville and a clinic in Knoxville that has been closed since a New Year’s Eve arson.
“This decision was not made lightly and is due to Tennessee’s legal landscape, which is extremely hostile to abortion access,” said Ashley Coffield, CEO and president, Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.
A federal ruling issued Tuesday allows Tennessee to enact a law banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, the first of two abortion laws the state is poised to enact in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to remove a person’s constitutional right to abortion. The court’s decision Friday ended the precedent of the last 50 years.
“Choices will continue to provide abortions for as long as we are legally able. With the fetal cardiac activity ban in place, we will continue to provide abortions for patients who do not show cardiac activity on their fetal scans,” Jennifer Pepper, CEO and president of Choices, said in a statement.
The provider announced in May, after a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion suggested Roe would be overturned, that it would open a clinic in Carbondale, Illinois. The planned clinic will be a three-hour drive from both Memphis and Nashville. Choices said the clinic in Carbondale will be the southernmost abortion clinic in Illinois.
“Unfortunately, this new ban, in conjunction with (Tennessee’s) 48-hour waiting period law, means that many people who need abortions are not able to receive them,” Pepper said Tuesday.
The six-week ban gives little space for a pregnant person to seek abortion care after learning of the pregnancy. Being six weeks pregnant is equivalent to being two weeks late to a period, if the person has a regular menstrual cycle.
Many people may not know they are pregnant at six weeks, The New York Times has reported. The required waiting period in Tennessee takes up additional days of an already squeezed timeline for people seeking the procedure.
“Serving patients is our No. 1 priority, and even though we are heartbroken to have to turn people away, we are committed to do everything we can within the extremely restrictive environment in our state to serve those who need us,” Pepper said.
Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi said it performed its last abortion procedure Monday.
“Let’s be very clear: Trained health care providers now have to deny patients the care they need because of the actions of Gov. (Bill) Lee and other anti-abortion politicians in Tennessee who have taken away the rights we have to control our own bodies and our reproductive health care decisions,” Coffield said Tuesday.
“No one should have to fear criminalization for either providing or accessing essential health care,” Coffield said.
After the decision, Lee called the ruling the start of a hopeful new chapter for the nation.
“We have spent years preparing for the possibility that authority would return to the states, and Tennessee’s laws will provide the maximum possible protection for both mother and child,” he said. “In the coming days, we will address the full impacts of this decision for Tennessee.”
State leaders sought an emergency order in federal appeals court Friday to have abortion restrictions take effect immediately.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday vacated a lower court’s injunction blocking a 2020 “fetal heartbeat” law.
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office argued the state “has a valid interest in protecting the lives of unborn Tennesseans” when asking for a rapid ruling Friday, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion.
The six-week ban will be in place for a few weeks before a near-total abortion ban, signed into law in 2019, supersedes the “heartbeat” law.
The Attorney General’s Office clarified Tuesday a final judgment in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a legal procedural step, is anticipated in mid-July. The judgment will trigger a 30-day countdown to implementation for the 2019 law, which includes almost no exceptions and places the legal burden on doctors to prove the patient qualifies for the exceptions in the law.
The Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health announced it would suspend all its abortion services after Friday. Reached Tuesday, the Bristol Regional Women’s Center said it had no comment.