Indiana already seeing fallout over first post-Roe abortion ban
Indiana’s new, sweeping ban on abortion produced immediate political and economic fallout Saturday, as some of the state’s biggest employers objected to the restrictions, Democratic leaders strategized ways to amend or repeal the law, and abortion rights activists made plans to arrange alternative locations for women seeking procedures.
The Indiana law, which the Republican-controlled Legislature passed late Friday and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed moments later, was the first state ban passed since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June and was celebrated as a major victory by abortion foes.
It also came just three days after voters in traditionally conservative Kansas surprised the political world by taking a very different tack, rejecting a ballot measure that would have stripped abortion rights protections from that state’s constitution.
The vote in Indiana capped weeks of fraught debate in Indianapolis, where activists demonstrated at the state Capitol and waged intense lobbying campaigns as Republican lawmakers debated how far the law should go in restricting abortion. Some abortion foes hailed the law’s passage as a road map for conservatives in other states pushing similar bans in the aftermath of the high court’s decision on Roe, which had guaranteed for the past 50 years the right to abortion care.
The Indiana ban, which goes into effect Sept. 15, allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality, or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death. Indiana joins nine other states that have abortion bans starting at conception.
The new law represents a victory for anti-abortion forces, who have been working for decades to halt the procedure. But passage occurred after disagreements among some abortion foes, some of whom thought the bill did not go far enough in stopping the procedure.
After the legislation was signed into law, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, one of the state’s largest employers, warned such laws would hurt its employee recruiting efforts and said the company would look elsewhere for its expansion plans.
“We are concerned that this law will hinder Lilly’s — and Indiana’s — ability to attract diverse scientific engineering and business talent from around the world,” the company said in a statement issued Saturday. “Given this new law, we will be forced to plan for more employment growth outside our home state.”
Salesforce, the tech giant with 2,300 employees in Indiana, had previously offered to relocate employees in states with abortion restrictions, though it didn’t respond Saturday to a request for comment on the Indiana law.
The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce also warned the ban was passed too quickly and without regard for how it will affect the state’s tourism industry.
“Such an expedited legislative process — rushing to advance state policy on broad, complex issues — is, at best, detrimental to Hoosiers, and at worst, reckless,” the chamber said in a statement, asking: “Will the Indy region continue to attract tourism and convention investments?”
Indiana lost out on 12 conventions and an estimated $60 million of business after it passed a religious freedom law in 2015, according to one local tourism industry estimate.
Indiana is the first state to ban abortion by legislature since the Supreme Court decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade. Other states enacted “trigger laws” that went into effect with the fall of Roe.
Indiana may be just the beginning. Abortion rights advocates estimate that abortion could be severely restricted or banned in as many as half of states.
An official at Indiana Right to Life, an Indiana antiabortion group, said the new law will end 95 percent of abortions in Indiana and will close all Indiana abortion clinics” Sept. 15, the date the legislation takes effect, unless abortion activists go to court and get an injunction beforehand.
Indiana has considered abortion restrictions for years, though it remained a state where many in the region traveled for abortion care. Now, as many nearby states — including Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia — also push for abortion bans, patients may have to travel hundreds of miles in some cases for care, said Elizabeth Nash, a policy expert at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.
Passage of the Indiana measure occurred just weeks after national attention was focused on a 10-year-old girl who was raped in Ohio, where abortion is banned after six weeks, and traveled to Indiana to terminate the pregnancy.
Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who performed that abortion in Indianapolis, tweeted Saturday that she was “devastated” by the legislature’s action. “How many girls and women will be hurt before they realize this must be reversed? I will continue to fight for them with every fiber of my being,” she wrote.