Even as abortion advocates in Tennessee try to find a loophole to invalidate the legitimately passed Amendment 1, lawmakers are wasting no time responding to the bill’s passage. First up is a an ultrasound bill, prefiled by Rep. Rick Womick, R-Rockvale. The Tennessean reports that the “main requirement of the bill calls for a woman to receive an ultrasound within 24 to 72 hours of when she plans to have the abortion.”
Womick noted that currently abortion facilities do ultrasounds anyway and that this bill would simply say, “look, let the mother see the picture and hear the heartbeat, that’s all this bill would do.”
While 23 states have ultrasound laws, the head of the abortion chain, Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee isn’t impressed. He said:
“It’s an attempt to shame, demean and terrorize women.”
But as The Tennessean reports:
“Doctors must verbally offer women the chance to view ultrasound images, but women can opt against seeing them under the provisions of Womick’s bill.
“However, doctors would still be required to explain what’s going on in the images of the ultrasound, give the woman a copy of the images and make audible any heartbeat, where present, regardless of whether the woman chooses to look at the images.
“‘Let her realize that it’s not just a blob of tissue, it’s a life,’ Womick said.”
Womick says the bill is modeled after the Texas ultrasound bill, and he notes that “Eighty-three percent of women in Texas who viewed the ultrasound end up keeping the baby.”
The bill is in its initial stages, but with the current leadership in Tennessee, Womick thinks it has a decent chance of passage. And so does the head of Planned Parenthood in the region. Teague remarked that even though the abortion abortion in the region plan to fight the bill, it won’t be simple.
