I am grateful to live in a state that knows that abortion kills a living child. A state that, in 2014, voted to amend its own constitution to allow for common sense abortion restrictions to protect women and their unborn children.
I am grateful for legislators who passed the Human Life Protection Act. For those who recognize that from the moment of conception, there exists, within the mother’s womb, a unique individual with his or her own distinct DNA and separate blood supply.
At 21 days, the heart starts to beat and by 45 days there are detectable brainwaves. At eight weeks all organs are present. This is not opinion or religious belief. This is science.
Time and again, the majority of Tennesseans who support common sense protections have been falsely labeled by the abortion providers as “extremists.”
Here is what is extreme: an organization that claims that abortion is only 3% of their business model and, yet, has had to close its franchises where abortion is now prohibited.
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If it truly was only 3% of its services, then why the need to close their doors? They were either lying all along or they simply have a terrible business model. Or both.
Examine other states’ affirmative defense laws
The reality is abortion providers in Tennessee thrive on the money they make from aborting children. They claim that African Americans are disproportionately affected by laws like the Human Life Protection Act but that is only because these abortion profiteers target Black neighborhoods to peddle abortions. After all, Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a well-known eugenicist.
Now, the debate has been framed around vulnerable doctors and rogue prosecutors. Abortion proponents claim that doctors will be jailed and tried before a jury before they will ever be able to raise the affirmative defense that they aborted the child to save the life of the mother.
Ohio and Kentucky beg to differ. They have had the same affirmative defense on the books and have never seen a doctor criminally charged.
In Ohio, there have been 70 abortions to save the life of the mother since 2011 and not a single criminal charge against doctors.
The affirmative defense is in the law specifically for those life-threatening cases including ectopic pregnancies and treatment of miscarriages.
Lawsuits have not undone the ‘will of the people’
When you listen to abortion providers, remember that they said abortion was only 3% of their business model. If you are worried about doctors being criminally charged, call your district attorney not your local abortion providers.
From 2008 to 2019, Tennessee reported an average of 11,000 terminations of pregnancy every year, according to the state Department of Health.
Nationwide, abortion providers receive half a billion dollars annually from our tax dollars. It’s no wonder they are trying to scare the people of Tennessee into re-thinking our values.
Abortion providers have sued the state time and again to try and overturn the will of the voters. They did so when Choose Life license plates were put in place to help fund pregnancy resources. They did so in 2014 to try and overturn the obvious outcome of the Amendment 1 election and in 2015 and 2020 to try and strike down commonsense protections for women and their unborn children.
When those who destroy the lives of children claim that Tennessee is in dire straits because of our Human Life Protection Act, remember that they have attempted for years to overthrow the will of the people of Tennessee, and now they are using scare tactics to reclaim the right to kill unborn children.
We are not buying it. The Human Life Protection Act will save thousands of lives.
Looking back years from now, those who are alive because of this law and who have been considered less than human for so long, will be grateful that they were allowed to be born in Tennessee.
LifeNews Note: Stacy Dunn is the president of Tennessee Right to Life. This column originally appeared at The Tennessean.
