Tennessee’s bill to reclassify abortion as homicide gets shut down

The dramatic reveal

Connecting the dots, Bill 570’s initial filing acted as a ‘caption bill’ which is just a piece of legislation introduced under a broad and mostly uninteresting title. With Tennessee having strict deadlines for new bill filings and lawmakers being behind on this one’s write-up, the caption bill was filed just to hold a spot on the calendar.

By doing so, it would prevent opposition groups like medical associations, civil rights lawyers, and any other organization from having months to organize their case against the bill. In a nutshell, Tennessee lawmakers used a bait-and-switch ploy to further restrict abortion laws in their state.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Senator Mark Pody (a staunch pro-life supporter) who initially endorsed its bill in its caption stage, was surprised by the severity of the amendment. Once he found out about its true intentions, he stated that he never intended to push a measure that would criminalize women or lead to the death penalties.

Thus, in early March, he announced that he was dropping Bill 570 which officially prevents it from moving forward and becoming the law.

Abortion accessibility in the US

Though Bill 570’s lack of success might offer hope, the current situation across the rest of the US is still cause for concern. Currently, the country’s fifty states have been divided into overarching zones with different ranges of restrictions and protections.

The highly restrictive states seem themselves banning abortion legally unless the mother’s life is being threatened. Unfortunately, with ‘life threatening’ being an ambiguous medical definition, many doctors choose not to perform the procedure in fear that the law might flip the narrative on them.

Certain restrictive states allow abortion until an early point in pregnancy. Unfortunately, this early point refers to a period where women themselves are unaware of their pregnancies, placing them in a tight spot and creating a potential grey area legally.

The remaining states find themselves in the protective zone with abortion remaining legal up to the point of foetal viability which is about 24 weeks and a little later. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, several states voted to put the right to abortion directly into their state constitution, making it much harder for future legislatures to ban it.

Three years ago, over 60% of abortions in the nation involved pills with constant legal battles over whether they should be sent through the mail. Thousands of people with limited access find themselves travelling hundreds of kilometres across state lines just to be able to get the procedure done in clinics along border states.

With the constant ‘homicide’ push, these individuals find themselves on the lookout for lawmakers who strive to take the rights to their own bodies away.

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