The Tennessee General Assembly may have gaveled business to a close, but the attendant bills passed by legislators are in flux until signed, vetoed or allowed to become law without the signature of Gov. Bill Lee.
One Chattanooga legislator, state Rep. Michele Reneau, R-Signal Mountain, hopes the governor will use the first veto of his administration on the recently passed Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act and has signed a letter with 10 other lawmakers toward that end.
The bill, though, neither takes away from nor adds anything to what is already legal in the state regarding contraception and in vitro fertilization (IVF) but does codify what is there in state law.
The letter effort, led by state Rep. Chris Todd, R-Madison County, calls the bill “a Trojan horse that could potentially undermine Tennessee’s strong and righteous stance on the protection of innocent human life.”
His reasoning is that if the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and all 24 House Democrats support it, it can’t be good.