On August 25, 2022, after the Supreme Court buried Roe and spat on the grave, Tennessee passed an anti-abortion law — the Human Life Protection Act — so sadistic it had no explicit exception for treatments to save the life of the mother. That is how the good Christians of the Volunteer State do “pro-life.”
Sensitive to the charge that the Tennessee legislature was abetting femicide, State Senator Richard Briggs assured the congregation that,
“There are really two exceptions. Number one, it’s performed to prevent the death of the mother, and number two it’s to prevent serious or substantial or irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Nice try. The law does contain an “affirmative defense” for doctors if a woman has a termination of pregnancy during medical care. However, the onus is on the doctor to prove that the abortion was necessary to save a life or prevent massive damage. As attorney Greg Isaacs explained,
“If you’re prosecuted you can say it was a decision I had to make to save the life of my patient to comply with my Hippocratic Oath. But does it keep them from being prosecuted? No. Is it a defense? Yes. Are there exceptions? No.”
It is hard enough to treat a pregnant woman with complications anywhere. In Tennessee, the doctor has to have their lawyer on speed dial. Nobody can think a physician fretting about the legality of the treatment they offer will provide optimal care.
Further, the law not only compromises the healthcare of pregnant women in crisis, but it also reduces the quality of healthcare for pregnant women in all circumstances. What OB-Gyn, who has a choice where to set up their practice, will pick Tennessee?
Tennesse can ill-afford to become even more hostile to medicine. As ‘Tennessee Lookout’ reports,
“It is becoming increasingly hard to be a healthcare provider in Tennessee.
From the COVID-19 pandemic, gun violence, the opioid epidemic, dismal maternal mortality rates, a mental health crisis, rural hospital closures, and the failure to accept Medicaid expansion, there are so many ways Tennessee leaders have failed — and continue to fail — their citizens.”
They add,
“It is currently illegal in Tennessee for physicians to treat ectopic pregnancies and other emergencies that occur during pregnancy due to the affirmative defense clause of the act. This threat of criminalization has struck fear in the hearts of many Tennessee physicians and has led to delays in necessary care for several pregnant patients thus far.
Many physicians have left the state rather than practice medicine in an environment where they are forced to provide subpar healthcare. Medical students and residents are rethinking coming to Tennessee to train and to establish their careers.”
The situation has become so dire that even conservative politicians have noticed. Last week a Republican-controlled panel advanced legislation removing the “affirmative defense” element and clarifying situations where abortion is allowed — including adding ectopic pregnancies, “medically futile pregnancies,” and lethal fetal anomalies.
This minimally humanitarian measure — it does not address pregnancies arising from rape and incest — is still a bridge too far for some. The anti-choice group ‘Tennessee Right to Life’ released a statement today supporting an amendment to Tennessee’s current abortion ban that would explicitly codify just two instances in which doctors could perform an abortion — ectopic pregnancy and removing dead fetuses.
This restrictive cruelty is an example where the exceptions prove the rule. The rule, in this case, is that the Tennessee Right to Life people are unmitigated shits.
Any serious attempt to reduce the number of abortions includes comprehensive sex ed and free birth control. A strategy that bans abortion without preventing pregnancy is a plan to enforce motherhood.
Unsurprisingly, Tennessee does not mandate sex ed in schools. It does require a family life education program if their county pregnancy rate exceeds 19.5 pregnancies per every 1,000 females ages 15-17. The national average is 6.3. It is unconscionable that the alarm bells do not go off until a locality reaches three times that rate. Besides, what is a ‘family life education program’?
The state also does not require sex ed to be comprehensive. It does mandate that schools stress ‘abstinence only’ — aka no sex ed. As a result, Tennessee is 7th in teenage pregnancy rate. Telling teens and young adults to just say “no” to sex works as well as Nancy Reagan’s “just say no to drugs” campaign did.
Tennessee is also 12th in the percentage of single mothers. That will not change. I am sure the rate of single mothers will go up. But undoubtedly, it will also go up in the 11 states ahead of it, which have also passed draconian anti-abortion laws. (Except for New Mexico, which is always an outlier, for some reason, on social statistics.)
The third world has made tremendous strides in reducing poverty by unleashing the economic dynamism of women — made possible by achieving a significant decline in the birthrate. If the poorest states in America would devote an equal effort to reducing their birthrates — among a whole lot of other things — they might aspire to be as rich as blue states someday.
However, that will not happen as long as people like Tennessee Right to Life keep designing policies.