Reproductive Rights

DID YOU KNOW:

Preventing unwanted pregnancies is far more effective.

History tells us that abortion bans don’t prevent abortions; they just prevent safe, legal abortions, especially among women who don’t have the resources to travel to get one legally. A number of studies, including one from Washington University School of Medicine, have shown that access to free birth control reduces abortion rates. Abortion rates in the US plummeted after the Affordable Care Act required insurers to cover the cost of birth control. (Later that provision of the ACA was struck down by the Supreme Court.) Other studies have shown that more comprehensive sex education measurably reduces teen births. Preventing unwanted pregnancies is key to preventing abortions.

Do you support total abortion bans? 

DID YOU KNOW:

Reliable birth control can be hard to get, especially in states that ban abortion.

The most reliable forms of birth control require a prescription. That’s a legal obstacle for minors and a roadblock for those who don’t have health insurance or money for the copay. Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control to people who otherwise can’t get it, has limited reach in states with abortion bans. Tennessee has only two permanent locations, in Memphis and Nashville. The Knoxville location was destroyed by arson. Reducing access to birth control does not reduce abortion rates.

Do you think every girl or woman of reproductive age should have access to effective birth control?

DID YOU KNOW:

Decades of data shows that’s not happening. 

If a sexually active woman used abortion as birth control, she would end up having 30 or more abortions during her lifetime. In a 1999 CDC survey of abortion patients, 52% of them reported that this was their first abortion, and 26% said it was their second. Abortion rates have steadily dropped since 1999. More than half the abortion patients in a 2014 study reported using birth control the month they got pregnant. Most women who seek abortions are already mothers. The top reason women give for seeking an abortion is economic.

Do you think strengthening support for struggling families is one way to reduce abortion rates without abortion bans?

DID YOU KNOW:

Abortion is often necessary to preserve a woman’s life or health. It’s part of standard OB-GYN training.

From a medical perspective, “abortion” simply means emptying the uterus. That’s why a miscarriage is sometimes called a “spontaneous abortion.” If a woman is having a miscarriage before the point of fetal viability and she takes a medication or has a surgical procedure to ensure that her uterus empties completely, she’s had an abortion. Tennessee's abortion ban doesn’t allow most medically necessary abortions.

Do you think women should have the right to protect their health without government interference?

DID YOU KNOW:

If a woman has an abortion late in pregnancy, it's because something has gone terribly wrong with her or the baby. 

Under Roe, abortion was not legally protected after fetal viability (23–24 weeks) unless continuing the pregnancy was dangerous for the mother or the baby had extremely serious or fatal defects. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, just 1% of abortions happen after 21 weeks. Common scenarios are that the mother's water breaks or she begins to miscarry before viability and abortion is necessary to prevent hemorrhaging or infection. In Tennessee, doctors must now wait to provide treatment until the fetus has no detectable heartbeat, even though miscarriage is inevitable. Waiting puts the mother's life at greater risk and can damage her ability to have children in the future.

About 92% of abortions take place in the first trimester. More than half of abortions (53%) occur through the use of medication, not surgery. Tennessee's bans prohibits both medication and surgical abortions.

Do you think doctors should be allowed to work quickly to save a patient's life or health, without having to worry about legal prosecution?

DID YOU KNOW:

Tennessee’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the nation, has no exceptions for rape or incest. It has a narrow exception for some—but not most—life-threatening conditions.

Abortion is illegal in Tennessee from the moment of conception. There are no exceptions for rape or incest, even if the victim is a young child. It is medically dangerous for young girls to have a baby, because their bodies are not sufficiently developed to carry a pregnancy.

The law was changed to create a narrow exception for ectopic and molar pregnancies, but doctors say many life- and health-threatening conditions are not specifically covered. Because doctors could face felony charges, they often wait until the patient is near death, leading to severe and sometimes permanent complications.

In February 2024, legislation was introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly that would make it a crime for an adult to help a child access an abortion without parental consent. A pregnant child is often the victim of sexual abuse by her own parent.

Do you think a girl or woman should be forced to bear her rapist's child?

DID YOU KNOW:

In Tennessee, a pregnant woman whose baby has a fatal birth defect will be forced to carry to term and go through childbirth.

Before Tennessee’s 2022 abortion ban, women could consult with their doctors and decide for themselves whether to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term. Some women chose not to go through with a pregnancy and answer the inevitable, well-meaning questions from strangers ("Is it a boy or a girl?" "Have you picked a name?") when they knew they wouldn't be bringing a baby home. Now they have no choice. 

While Tennessee’s ban is too recent for us to have good data on its effects, we do have data from Texas, which passed its abortion ban in 2021. Since that ban went into effect, there has been a 21% increase in infant deaths in Texas due to severe genetic and birth defects, and an 11% increase in infant mortality overall. Between 2014 and 2021, infant mortality in Texas fell by 15%.

Do you think it should be up to the mother whether to carry a pregnancy to term when the baby inside her is doomed to die?

DID YOU KNOW:

Tennessee’s abortion ban was written by lobbyists with Tennessee Right to Life, apparently without expert input, and does not reflect the medical standards of evidence-based obstetrics-gynecology.

The Tennessee General Assembly passed it in 2019 as a “trigger law.” When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the law went into effect in Tennessee, more than 700 Tennessee doctors signed a letter to the TGA warning that it endangers women’s lives. Some Tennessee legislators who originally voted for the law said they hadn’t read it.

The abortion ban makes it hard for OB-GYNs in training to get a complete education in Tennessee, and hard for Tennessee to attract practicing OB-GYNs. As of 2022, 43 of Tennessee's 95 counties don’t have an OB-GYN physician, a shortage that puts millions of Tennesseans at risk. Tennessee has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.

Do you think lawmakers should take the advice of medical experts when they're making laws about medical procedures?