Tennessee Attorney General Asks Court to Allow State’s Heartbeat Law to Be Enforced Sooner While Awaiting Near-Total Abortion Ban to Become Effective

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III announced his office has asked the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the district court’s injunction and allow the state’s heartbeat law to go into effect as soon as possible.

The attorney general’s request to allow the state’s law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected – generally at six weeks’ gestation – is a temporary measure until, in 30 days, the state’s 2019 Human Life Protection Act, a law that bans most abortions at any time, except those to save the life of the mother, can be enforced.

“Tennesseans, through the affirmative vote of their elected representatives, amended the Constitution a few years ago to confirm that the Tennessee Constitution does not provide a right to an abortion and leaves the issue up to the General Assembly,” Slatery said in a statement following the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization:

As a result of today’s ruling:

I will notify the Tennessee Code Commission in writing that Roe and Casey have been overruled, as required by statute.

We have asked the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the district court’s injunction of the timing provisions in our heartbeat abortion law, so that the law will go into effect as soon as possible.

Slatery then added:

In 30 days, after the issuance of the judgment, the 2019 Human Life Protection Act should go into effect in Tennessee.

“To state the obvious: Dobbs is a momentous decision,” the attorney general said. “Our republic is founded on the rule of law. Accordingly, we give respect and deference to the Court on occasions when its decisions align and support our state laws, and in cases when a decision might be contrary to Tennessee state law and what the majority of Tennesseans want, as was the case with the 2015 Obergefell decision.”

“Most importantly, after nearly 50 years, today’s decision gives the people of Tennessee a say on what the Court called ‘a profound moral issue,’” the attorney general said.

Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed the Human Life Protection Act (SB 1257/ HB 1029), a legislative priority of Tennessee Right to Life, into law on May 10, 2019…. Excerpt from The Star News Network)