Bill to ban abortion has no exceptions

By Richard Locker for the Commercial Appeal

March 9, 2004 

NASHVILLE - The state Senate stripped the right to abortion in cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother out of a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Tennessee Constitution Monday night.

Senators then postponed until Thursday a floor vote on the overall bill, which is designed to remove abortion rights from the state's constitution. But even if the Senate approves the proposed amendment, it still faces bigger hurdles, including passage by the House of Representatives, before a statewide constitutional referendum would be held in 2006 to ratify it.

The push for the constitutional amendment originated with abortion opponents after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled four years ago that the state constitution contains a broader right to privacy, and thus to abortion, than the U.S. Constitution. In that ruling, the high court struck down several Tennessee laws that restricted but did not prohibit abortion, including mandatory waiting periods for women seeking abortion.

With the Senate's public galleries packed mostly by abortion foes and some abortion rights advocates, lawmakers debated whether to retain a constitutional right to abortion for victims of rape and incest and in cases where the mother's life is endangered by the pregnancy even if an overall right to abortion is removed by the constitutional amendment.

By the time the debate ended nearly two hours later, the Senate had voted 17-15 in favor of a proposal by Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, that would provide no constitutional guarantee for the three exemptions but instead would have left it to future legislatures to authorize them if they are deemed "reasonably necessary."

Norris described his proposal as a compromise to be substituted for an earlier amendment by Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, that would have enshrined in the constitution the right to abortion in the three cases. Norris argued that without his wording, the state's future laws on abortion would be written by judges and not legislators.

After Norris's amendment was adopted over Herron's objections, opponents of the bill argued that the newly rewritten constitutional amendment was poorly worded and made no sense.

As it is now worded, the proposal would read that nothing in the constitution "secures or protects the right to abortion or the funding thereof; except the legislature shall have the authority to make such exceptions as the legislature deems reasonably necessary, including the authority to make exceptions in the case of rape or incest and to save the life of the mother."

Senators delayed the vote on the overall amendment because of concerns over the wording.