Lee aims abortion plan at high court
As Gov. Bill Lee and Republican legislators put finishing touches on new wide-ranging abortion legislation, they’re writing it with a specific audience in mind: the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lee’s abortion proposal, which would be among the most restrictive in the nation, tackles abortion rights from a number of angles. It’s also being written to where, if a portion of the legislation is struck down, other bans in the bill would remain in place.
Sen. Mike Bell, R-riceville and chairman of the judiciary committee, said the state intends for the legislation to give Tennessee “multiple shots” at raising a case before U.S. Supreme Court over its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
“Now, we know something on its face is going to have to be unconstitutional to challenge Roe,” Bell said Thursday. “That’s part of it. But we want to give our bill the best chance possible to get there.”
Based on a draft amendment on the bill, scheduled to be heard in Bell’s Senate committee on Tuesday, the legislation would ban abortions:
❚ After a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or around six weeks;
❚ If the doctor knows that the woman is seeking an abortion because of the child’s sex or race;
❚ If the doctor knows the woman is seeking an abortion due to to a diagnosis of Down Syndrome; and
❚ For juveniles in custody of the Department of Children’s Services, including removing the current option to petition a judge for permission.
If the six-week ban, in conjunction with the detection of a fetal heartbeat, were to be struck down in court, the legislation goes on to automatically enact abortion bans at eight, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 weeks of gestation.
The legislation would make it a Class C felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in any of those situations, and the physician must also:
❚ Determine and inform the mother of the gestational age of the fetus;
❚ Allow the woman to hear the fetal heartbeat and explain the location of the unborn child within the uterus;
❚ Display ultrasound images to the mother; and
❚ Provide an explanation of the fetus’s dimensions and which external body parts and internal organs are present and visible.
Bell said Thursday the governor’s office and legislative leadership have been “consulting with national attorneys who are experts on this subject,” but did not elaborate on who those lawyers are.
While the Republican leaders of both chambers, Rep. William Lamberth of Portland and Sen. Jack Johnson of Franklin, are listed as bill sponsors for the legislation, Bell is expected to carry it in the Senate and Rep. Susan Lynn, R-mount Juliet, in the House.
In a 30-page draft amendment The Tennessean obtained on Friday, the first half reads similar to a resolution, sharing a series of findings about abortion but including few citations to its sources of information.
Two individuals with knowledge of the process said on Monday the language in that portion of the legislation resembling a preamble was a creation of the Lee administration, not something the legislature pushed.
Legislative leadership has requested citations for some of the claims included in the bill, though none have been added since the amendment draft was released late last week.
Throughout the first 14 pages, the amendment outlines the history of abortion in the United States and makes claims about fetal development — stating “an unborn child’s heart begins to beat at five weeks” and describing when the fetus can begin feeling pain — as well as about how scientific and technological advances since the Roe v. Wade decision have allowed preterm infants to survive earlier.
Then it argues that women who have received an abortion develop post-traumatic stress disorder “at a rate slightly higher than veterans of the Vietnam war,” that women having abortions “have an 81% increased risk of mental trauma,” and that abortion “has been shown to correlate with many other mental health disorders.”
The legislation does not cite any sources for those claims.
It notes that “recent evidence also suggests that sex-selective abortions of girls are common among certain populations in the United States,” but provides no details on the statistic and no source for the claim.
Lang Wiseman, chief counsel and deputy to the governor, has been spearheading the abortion legislation on behalf of Lee, according to multiple people familiar with the bill.
Before working for Lee, Wiseman, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a founding partner at a Memphis law firm and has served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
He did not immediately return a message seeking comment.