Two doctors and three women filed a lawsuit against Tennessee’s abortion law, arguing it prevents the implementation of life-saving medical care.
“Pregnant people in Tennessee have suffered needless physical and emotional pain and harm, including loss of their fertility,” said lawyers in suit’s filing documents. “These pregnant people are not imagined. They are not ideological talking points. They are real people, many with children who depend upon them.”
It’s the first challenge to Tennessee’s strict abortion ban since a narrow exception bill passed the State Legislature earlier this year.
The exception law allows physicians to perform abortions in limited medical emergencies like molar or ectopic pregnancies to remove a miscarriage, save the mother’s life or “prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
The suit argues the exceptions passed aren’t clear enough, creating a “pervasive fear and uncertainty throughout the medical community.”
