Tennessee Weighs Amendment 1 on Abortion
Our home state of Tennessee is considering a constitutional amendment today on abortion. It’s needed because the state’s Supreme Court in 2000 found a “right” to abortion that exceeds anything the U.S. Supreme Court managed to dig up in the penumbras emanating from the Constitution. The Tennessee Amendment reads, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.” What does that mean? That the legislature can pass abortion laws previously struck down by the state’s courts; nothing more. Due to lax abortion laws, more than one in four abortions performed in Tennessee are on women from out of state, prompting some to call it the abortion capital of the Bible Belt. Planned Parenthood, which subsists largely on killing children in the womb, has marshaled its forces to block the amendment, but it’s critical that residents of the Volunteer State vote yes on 1. It’s a matter of life and death.