Tennessee Sen. Mark Pody said Tuesday (March 3) he is dropping a bill that would criminalize women for having abortion procedures, potentially allowing them to be charged with murder.
Pody, a Lebanon Republican, said he can’t run the measure because of the amendment tacked onto it by state Rep. Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican, which would penalize women who have abortions, including those who go out of state for treatment of dangerous pregnancies.
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“I appreciate that he is very, very passionate about this issue,” Pody said. “But it’s very easy to see I don’t have the votes in the Senate, so there’s no sense in running it.”
The amendment to House Bill 570 would treat an abortion the same as criminal homicide.
Pody said he never intended to push such a measure.
Barrett said Tuesday he is not trying to have women sentenced to death, even though his bill would treat the unborn the same as the born, calling that the “equal protection” portion of the bill.
“It’s not singling out women. It’s saying that anybody that kills a child in the womb would be subject to criminal penalty,” Barrett said.
Exception
The bill contains an exception to save the life of a mother “when accompanied by reasonable steps, if available, to save the life of the unborn child.”
Tennessee has one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. But Barrett contends the state doesn’t have a complete ban on the procedure because state law only prohibits the practice of abortion by medical professionals, not abortions out of state or by medication delivered through the mail.
He claims more than 15,000 abortions were done through those means in Tennessee in 2024.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Sam Stockard and originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.
