Abortion providers seek to halt plan
Tennessee Gov. Lee expected to sign bill for new ban
NASHVILLE – Tennessee abortion providers have asked a judge for a temporary restraining order that would stop the state from implementing strict new abortion restrictions recently passed by the legislature.
The bill, part of Lee’s legislative agenda that was largely abandoned earlier this spring amid the coronavirus pandemic, found new life through last-minute budget negotiations between the House and Senate on Thursday.
It passed the Senate 23-5 just after 12:30 a.m. last Friday on a party-line vote, after already passing in the House. Gov. Bill Lee has yet to sign the bill but is expected to do so.
Later that day, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit against the bill in federal court in Nashville.
The state has yet to respond to the lawsuit, which is before U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr.
Abortion providers asked for the restraining order in an attempt to delay implementation of the ban while the case is before the courts.
The legislation “will immediately and irreparably harm Plaintiffs and their patients by instantly eviscerating pre-viability abortion access in Tennessee with devastating effects,” the motion for the restraining order reads.
If the legislation takes effect, the plaintiffs “will have no choice but to turn away the vast majority of pregnant people seeking critical and time-sensitive medical care,” the groups argued in their motion.
Wide-ranging bill includes fail-safe measure
In addition to banning abortions after the point a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is as early as six weeks, the legislation also prohibits the procedure:
• 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.
• For juveniles in custody of the Department of Children’s Services, including removing the current option to petition a judge for permission.
While there is an exception to the restrictions if a woman’s life is in danger, there are no exceptions for rape or incest.
If the courts strike down the six-week ban, the legislation goes on to automatically enact abortion bans in conjunction with the detection of a fetal heartbeat at eight, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 weeks of gestation.
“Every day the Bans are in effect, virtually all patients in Tennessee will be unable to receive constitutionally-protected abortion care in the state; those seeking banned care will be forced to travel out of state if they are able; those unable to travel out of state will be forced to remain pregnant and give birth against their will; and others may resort to unsafe means to terminate their pregnancy,” the motion for the restraining order, filed Monday, reads.
The legislation was also amended to require that abortion clinics post a sign in the waiting room and in patient rooms and impose a fine of $10,000 for failing to do so. The sign must inform people that it may be possible to reverse a chemical abortion, but there remains no medical consensus on whether that’s possible.
It would also 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.
• Conduct an ultrasound and display the images to the mother.
• Provide an explanation of the fetus’s dimensions and which external body parts and internal organs are present and visible.
Similar six-week bans have been struck down in Mississippi, Ohio and other states.
Call for restraining order
A group of abortion providers from across the state, including Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville and Mt. Juliet, and two physicians, filed the motion Monday on behalf of themselves, their staff and patients.
The plaintiffs say the state already limits abortion to the fullest extent possible under the state Constitution, but that the new bans’ reach would be unconstitutional.
Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III was named as a defendant in the suit, alongside the district attorneys general of Davidson, Knox, Shelby and Wilson counties, the state health department director and the president of the board of medical examiners in their official capacities.
Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Tennessee and North Mississippi, said the Senate’s last-minute approval of the legislation Friday “flies in the face of democracy.”
“In the dead of night, Tennessee politicians hellbent on chipping away at abortion access blocked citizens from entering the state Capitol while they used this draconian abortion ban to pass the state budget,” Coffield said in a statement. “While Tennesseans are concerned about their health and safety during a pandemic, politicians used women’s lives as a bargaining chip to push their political agenda.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, in a statement applauded Lee for making the legislation part of his agenda, as well as their “pro-life allies in the Tennessee General Assembly.”
“Tennessee’s landmark new law includes some of the strongest protections in the nation for unborn children and their mothers,” Dannenfelser said.
Other legal battles continue
The new bans are not the only Tennessee limit on abortion before the federal courts.
A federal judge ruled last month that Mt. Juliet’s zoning ordinances, which limited the ability of businesses to provide the procedure to industrial areas, placed an “undue burden” and “substantial obstacle,” on women seeking abortions. The ACLU filed suit on behalf of Carafem, a clinic there.
In April, a different judge ruled the state couldn’t determine abortions to be non-emergency medical procedures during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the state can’t temporarily block the procedure for some “categories of patients.”
Gov. Bill Lee issued an executive order halting nonemergency medical procedures through April 30 in an effort to preserve personal protective equipment, or PPE, and slow the spread of the coronavirus. State attorneys argued this order should delay most abortions, saying they required PPE and appointments that could speed the spread of COVID-19.
The push against the state’s efforts this year was supplemental to a long-running suit against Tennessee’s required 48-hour waiting period before an abortion, which remains pending, as it has for five years, before a federal judge.