NASHVILLE – Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery announced Tuesday the state’s new law banning most abortions is set to take effect Aug. 25.
Slatery said the move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court, which released its opinion overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, issued its formal judgment in Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Tennessee’s “trigger” law, passed in 2019, makes the act of providing abortion services a felony in most cases unless it is to save the life of the woman or prevent irreversible harm to her. Even in that case, the law places the burden of proving the procedure was allowed on the medical provider – as opposed to requiring a prosecutor to prove it was prohibited.
Last week, Tennessee Senate Health and General Welfare Committee Chairman Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, told legislative colleagues the General Assembly may need to revisit and “fine tune” the state’s near-total ban on abortions over that provision.
Doctors have expressed concerns that they are at legal risk of being forced to prove their actions were justified in court even when they acted to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent irreversible harm, Crowe said.