Healthy and Free Tennessee believes that every person should be able to access abortion care when they need it. It is not the place of lawmakers to create restrictive, burdensome, and medically-unnecessary legislationdesigned to create barriers to abortion access. We should not allow the dissemination of misinformation surrounding the risks related to having an abortion. We must speak out about the marginalization of people who decide to end a pregnancy.
Each person should be able to decide when or whether they are ready to be a parent, to manage their health and prevent pregnancy, to have full access to fertility services to plan for a pregnancy, and to have the birth experience of their choosing.
During the 2015 legislative session, a number of restrictive anti-abortion bills were proposed and two were signed into law by Governor Haslam including a bill talking about informed consent that interferes with patient counseling, a 48-hour waiting period that forces a delay in accessing care, and medically unnecessary licensing rules that require ambulatory surgical center licenses for abortion providers performing 50 or more abortions a year.
Healthy and Free Tennessee is committed to ensuring the availability and affordability of care, including getting rid of limits on insurance coverage so that people can afford the services to support the decision that is best for their unique circumstances. We know that policies denying coverage and creating barriers have a disparate impact on low-income women and women of color.
Resources
- Read “Let’s Make One Thing Clear: Abortion Access is Under Attack, and Tennessee is Fighting Back!”
- Check out “Step Forward in Repealing Hyde Amendment”.
- The National Women’s Law Center has a resource on 2015 state level abortion restrictions.
Amendment One and What It Means for TN
In 2000, The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that some laws passed by the state legislature and designed to restrict women's rights to abortion in Tennessee were unconstitutional. In November of 2014, an amendmentwas passed that added language to our state constitution that was pushed to make it easier for legislators to push limits on abortion. While the passage of this amendment was incredibly concerning, the state Attorney General has said that it may in fact be toothless. There is litigation pending that challenges the restrictions passed during the 2015 legislation.
To learn more about our work to ensure reproductive rights, follow HFTN on Facebook and Twitter (@HealthyFreeTN) and make sure that you sign up to receive our e-mails to stay updated.