For decades, Tennessee Right to Life has helped set the anti-abortion agenda in Tennessee, providing lawmakers with the bill language and backing to successfully enact abortion restrictions. In recent years, restrictions have included waiting periods, layers of added regulations on abortion clinics, required cremation or burial of fetal remains and prohibitions on prescribing abortion medications remotely and delivering abortion medications through the mail.
The organization, headquartered in Nashville, also led the campaign in 2014 for Amendment 1, a Constitutional Amendment approved by voters that removed the right to an abortion from the state’s Constitution and gave lawmakers the right to regulate the procedure.
And in 2019, Tennessee Right to Life crafted the language and engaged in sustained lobbying for what ultimately became the Human Life Protection Act, the so-called “trigger” law that is expected to take effect in a matter of weeks, banning abortion in Tennessee now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned nearly 50 years of abortion rights.
The court’s June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concluded the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, leaving to individual states the right to set, or eliminate, laws on abortion access.
In a Q and A with Tennessee Lookout, edited for clarity and length, Tennessee Right to Life’s legal counsel and lobbyist Will Brewer spelled out what the organization is setting its sights on next in Tennessee.