TENNESSEE
Political control: Tennessee has a Republican governor who is consistently vocal about his opposition to abortion. The GOP holds a supermajority in the state legislature and has steadily chipped away at abortion access.
Background: In 2020, Tennessee passed a law banning most abortions when the fetal heartbeat can be detected at about six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant. The measure has never been enforced because it was promptly blocked by a federal court. On June 28, a federal appeals court let it take effect. Tennessee voters approved an amendment in 2014 declaring that the state’s constitution doesn’t protect or secure the right to abortion or require the funding of an abortion, and empowering state lawmakers to “enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion.” State law also doesn’t allow providers to dispense abortion medications through telemedicine consultations. There are six abortion providers in Tennessee.
Effect of Supreme Court ruling: The state’s attorney general, a Republican, has said a trigger law will go into effect in mid-August that bans all abortions in Tennessee except when necessary to prevent death or “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” Doctors could be charged with a felony for providing an abortion under the law.
What’s next: Tennessee’s attorney general has said the trigger law will take precedence over the 2020 law banning most abortions at about six weeks. Meanwhile, Republicans are expected to continue to have supermajority control after this year’s midterm elections. Reproductive rights activists say they will direct patients seeking abortion to clinics in Illinois if Roe v. Wade is overturned, or to Florida, which would ban abortions at 15 weeks. North Carolina and Virginia also could be options for women in eastern Tennessee.
