Representative Esther Helton-Haynes (R-East Ridge-District 30) and Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville-District 7) have partnered to sponsor legislation that would create more exceptions for abortions in Tennessee, directly conflicting with existing pro-life law.
HB1241/SB1425 would allow physicians to perform abortions involving “lethal fetal anomalies” and would remove liability from committing “the offense of criminal abortion” for these practitioners.
The bill’s language defines these anomalies to mean a fetal condition diagnosed before the 24th week of pregnancy that would make the fetus, “A) Incompatible with life outside the womb, B) Will not improve with medical intervention, and C) Will result in the death of the fetus upon birth or imminently thereafter.” There are no examples given of ailments which would meet these criteria.
It also includes abortion allowances for such “conditions” that could cause “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” to the mother like preeclampsia (high blood pressure which is monitored throughout the pregnancy and typically resolves after birth), an inevitable abortion (a misleading term for an unavoidable miscarriage), and diabetes.
