Seven women and two doctors are suing the state of Tennessee, claiming the state’s laws protecting preborn children have caused them pain and suffering. One of the women, Allie Phillips, is now running for political office.
A three-judge panel began hearing arguments Thursday, April 4, on the lawsuit’s efforts to have Tennessee’s pro-life law thrown out. According to the lawsuit, the seven women claim to have been denied “necessary and potentially life-saving medical care” because doctors “fear the penalties imposed by that ban.” Lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights are representing the women, and though they acknowledged medical exemptions are already present in the state law, they claimed the exemptions were too vague, leading to doctors turning away women who were experiencing emergencies during pregnancy.
“Doctors are denying or delaying abortion care in cases where even defendants concede that it would be legally permissible,” Linda Goldstein, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said, according to Reuters.
Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal seemingly agreed, saying it was a “challenge to read clarity into the statute” due to “imprecise terms.” The answer, then, would seemingly be to write more precise language into the statute so the potential confusion is eliminated, while still protecting preborn children from abortion. But that isn’t the goal of the lawsuit.
The text of the bill reads (emphases added):
The physician determined, in the physician’s good faith medical judgment, based upon the facts known to the physician at the time, that the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman. No abortion shall be deemed authorized under this subdivision (c)(2) if performed on the basis of a claim or a diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function or for any reason relating to her mental health; and
The physician performs or attempts to perform the abortion in the manner which, in the physician’s good faith medical judgment, based upon the facts known to the physician at the time, provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive, unless in the physician’s good faith medical judgment, termination of the pregnancy in that manner would pose a greater risk of the death of the pregnant woman or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function. No such greater risk shall be deemed to exist if it is based on a claim or diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible.
Whitney Hermandorfer, a lawyer with the Tennessee attorney general’s office, meanwhile argued that the wording is not unclear, which she believes is demonstrated by the fact that only two doctors are willing to sue to have the law overturned.
“A few doctors saying as a matter of fact that they are unclear about what serious risk might entail in an edge case does not show vagueness as a matter of law,” she said Thursday in court, adding, “So while we can all agree the past health circumstances are incredibly unfortunate, I submit here that they do not provide a legal reason to invalidate the medical exception at issue in this case.”
Furthermore, Hermandorfer pointed out that the pro-abortion lawyers are engaging in vague language themselves, saying, “The entire presentation of the other side, I have not heard one acknowledgment of the fact that when they mention abortion care, what that involves is the termination of another life.”
Attorneys for the Center for Reproductive Rights are asking for the judges to put a temporary injunction on the law while the legal battle plays out.
