LIMITED EXCEPTIONS NEEDED TO STATE’S ABORTION BAN
Lawmakers in at least 13 states that have banned abortions are grappling with whether to leave the bans in place or determine in what cases exceptions would be allowed.
Tennessee is one of those states, and a Hamilton County Republican lawmaker is one of those who has introduced a bill that would permit abortions in rare circumstances.
The bill offered by Rep. Esther Helton, R-East Ridge, would limit “the offense of criminal abortion to only apply to elective abortions,” which are defined as “any abortion that is not medically necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
In other words, abortion exceptions would be permitted only to prevent the death or severe physical impairment of the mother. It does not provide an exception for cases related to mental health.
We know there have been cases where the mother sacrifices her life for the sake of her unborn child, but we think asking mothers to do that is asking them to play God.
(For instance, Bobbie McMullen, wife of then-Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Ken McMullen, was diagnosed with breast cancer before the 1973 season while pregnant with her third child. She chose not to have treatment or an abortion, began cancer treatment after giving birth to her son in November 1973, but died in April 1974.)
Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, is the Senate co-sponsor. Under current law, a doctor can be criminally prosecuted for performing any abortion. However, the law allows for an “affirmative defense” to be made in the case of what is deemed to be a medically necessary abortion.
“Although well intended, the affirmative defense provision is not only overly burdensome for physicians but it … puts at risk the lives of pregnant women who require medically necessary abortions,” Yager has said.
Helton and state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, also have signed on to be co-sponsors of a bill that would add exceptions to the abortion law for rape and incest if the abortion is performed before a specific gestational period of the fetus. For females ages 13-up, it would mandate the abortion be performed before eight weeks of pregnancy. For females ages 12-under, it would mandate the abortion occur no later than 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The measure, sponsored in the House by Rep. Iris Rudder, R-Winchester, also requires the physician performing the abortion to confirm the patient reported the offense to the appropriate law enforcement agency and submitted to a forensic medical examination, “if appropriate and available,” before the procedure. It further adds a mandatory minimum sentence of three years incarceration for filing a false report of rape or incest for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.
The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, the Senate speaker pro tempore.
Another Chattanooga representative, Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga, beat both bills to the table by submitting one before the start of the legislative session that would do both things the Republican bills would do — allow abortion exceptions for incest, rape, and to protect the life or health of the mother.
“You know, the life of the mother I think is very important,” he told the Times Free Press in November, “and that’s what brought this (legislative effort) on.”
However, the legislator withdrew his bill earlier this week. He also signed on to a bill sponsored by Rep. Karen Camper, D-Memphis, which enacts the “Fundamental Right to Reproductive Health Care Act,” the summary of which on the legislator’s page on the General Assembly website is said not to be available.
A December Vanderbilt University poll found that 75% of Tennesseans favored exceptions in the abortion ban for cases of rape and incest. In a poll conducted by the Times Free Press during the November 2022 election, 29% of respondents said abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
Clearly, many Tennesseans — even many who support the state’s abortion ban — believe the law should have some exceptions. As seen above, the two female members of Hamilton County’s legislative delegation have put their names on bills with one exception or another.
Although the intentional taking of the life of a fetus is abhorrent to us in most cases, the exceptions — most especially the one to save the mother’s life — make common sense. Most Tennesseans would support them, and Republican legislators who once might have been defeated for taking such stands are unlikely to pay a price for backing them.
Other abortion bills also will get an airing in the legislature this year, but we suspect most of the talk will center on the exceptions legislation. We hope a vigorous debate will allow legislators to see that a few limited exceptions to the abortion law are necessary.