The Nation's Biggest Abortion Battle Is Playing Out in Tennessee

[Judi Lynn]

The Nation's Biggest Abortion Battle Is Playing Out in Tennessee

A ballot measure will decide the future of reproductive rights in the state.

—By Molly Redden
| Fri Sep. 12, 2014 6:00 AM EDT

The most contentious political battle raging in Tennessee this year has nothing to do with control of the US Senate or the governor's mansion—it's taking place over a ballot measure that would make Tennessee the next hot zone in the war over abortion rights.

The referendum, called Amendment 1, would amend Tennessee's constitution to read: "Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion," including for pregnancies "resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother." If the amendment succeeds, it would allow state lawmakers to pass the kinds of draconian abortion restrictions seen in neighboring states. And pro- and anti-abortion rights groups are raising millions to swing the outcome.

Tennessee Republicans have been striving to put this referendum before voters since 2000, when a state Supreme Court decision blocked several harsh anti-abortion measures from becoming law. The ruling, which struck down several anti-abortion laws passed in 1998, has prevented the Legislature from passing certain strict laws enacted in other states, such as a mandatory abortion waiting period. In 2011, a supermajority of both chambers of the state Legislature, which included many Democrats, passed a measure to place Amendment 1 on the November 2014 ballot.

Amendment 1 would overturn that court decision. "It will basically just open the floodgates for the General Assembly to pass any kind of restriction if the amendment passes," says Jeff Teague, the president of Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee. "We think they probably have a long list of things they're going to pass."

The fight has implications beyond Tennessee. A 2010 survey found that 1 in 4 women who receives an abortion in Tennessee is from out of state—from places such as Alabama and Mississippi, where, thanks to highly restrictive abortion laws, there are only a handful of abortion providers.

More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/tennessee-amendment-1-abortion-rights-planned-parenthood

[blkmusclmachine]

1. The Republican Model Society is Afghanistan, and they're trying to impose it on the States here.

[hedda_foil]

2. Inherit the Wind.

Seems to me like the Scopes "Monkey Trial" took place in Tennessee.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherit_the_Wind_(1960_film)

I was 15 fwiw in 1960, and it seemed that the events of that. 1925 trial irl were as distant and crazy as the Salem witch trials. How many of us who saw that film in its original run would have imagined that we'd be farther back now than we were then?

[Cartoonist]

3. It really didn't seem that long ago

I thought the abortion issue was settled. How can these troglodytes succeed?

[malthaussen]

4. No, the courts will decide.

Any law that is passed will be immediately challenged by one side or the other, and will doubtless go through the appeals cycle until it lands on the doorstep of the USSC. Agonizing over the intermediate steps along the way is like calling a baseball game in the first inning.

-- Mal