Tennessee became the most recent state to pass a bill outlawing abortion once a heartbeat is detected, and there is no reason it should be the last.
Tennessee’s heartbeat bill, augmented by prohibitions on abortions based on the “sex, race or disability diagnosis of the unborn child,” is the latest in the line of state bills meant to protect the unborn. Six states passed heartbeat bills in 2019, including a bipartisan effort in Louisiana, though none have been able to take effect due to court challenges.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice nonprofit organization, 20 states have laws that would restrict legal abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned, either in their pre-Roe laws or in “trigger” laws that would take effect as soon as the decision was reversed. But why have so few states done what Tennessee just did last week, actively taking the steps to protect life in defiance of our abortion-happy jurisprudence?
Republican politicians are usually pretty good at letting voters know how pro-life they are, and yet until recently, many have been reluctant to turn their words into laws. Part of the reason is that the abortion issue was hijacked by the courts. Since the Supreme Court concocted a right to abortion in Roe, the pro-life movement has been hamstrung by overreaching courts and left-wing activist groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who are quick to sue over any new legislation. This has led many GOP politicians to wash their hands of the issue entirely, touting support for originalist judges and calling it a day.
There are currently 21 states where the GOP has control of the governorship and the state legislature; combined with a collection of pro-life Democrats in Louisiana, there’s no reason a party of ostensibly pro-life lawmakers shouldn’t be rolling out variations of their own heartbeat bill each year in response to previous attempts being struck down. Abortion polling is fickle and largely depends on the wording of the question, but heartbeat bills are no more politically toxic than any other abortion legislation. A May 2019 poll of registered voters found that 55% of voters said heartbeat bills were either too lenient or just right.
If the Supreme Court is unwilling to do its job properly and reexamine its 1973 error in Roe, it becomes even more imperative that Republican politicians press the issue. Judges cannot be the end-all, be-all for the GOP’s pro-life efforts. Kudos to Tennessee Republicans for taking a stand, and it’s time for states who haven’t to start workshopping heartbeat bills of their own.
