Thu Feb 16, 2023 – 6:50 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) — Tennessee Republicans have introduced and sponsored two bills in the state legislature to amend the Human Life Protection Act (HLPA).
The first new bill, HB1440/SB857, amends the HLPA to make an exception to allow abortion if the conception occurred by rape.
The second new bill, HB883/SB745, is moving quickly through the Tennessee House, sponsored by Republican Reps. Esther Helton-Haynes, Iris Rudder, Patsy Hazelwood, Andrew Farmer, Jerome Moon, Mark White, Pat Marsh, Sam Witson, Ron Travis, Joe Carr, and Kevin Vaughan, and Republican Senator Richard Briggs. This bill would substantially amend the HLPA to allow the abortion of children having a “lethal fetal anomaly.” The bill also allows abortion for preventing (in addition to treating) a medical emergency for the mother.
Further, the HB883/SB745 changes the state’s burden of proof in the prosecution of criminal abortion by allowing abortion subject to the physician’s “good faith medical judgment” rather than “reasonable medical judgment.” In his recent legal opinion, pro-life attorney Paul Linton wrote that passing HB883/SB745 would “effectively nullify the prohibition of abortion in Tennessee.”
The HLPA, passed as a trigger law in 2019, went into effect last
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