Two Tennessee Republicans are seeking to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions, requiring the same penalties for women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” as defendants charged with homicide.

An amendment drafted for House Bill 570/Senate Bill 738 that’s not yet been voted on would allow prosecutors to charge women who obtain abortions with fetal homicide, punishable by life imprisonment, life without parole, or in some cases, the death penalty.

Sponsored by Rep. Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, and Rep. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, the bill was referred to the House Population Health Subcommittee and is not yet on the calendar to be considered.

The bill specifically removes legal protections for pregnant women currently in statute, and classifies harm done to an unborn child as equal to assault on a person “born alive.”

It would not apply to “a spontaneous miscarriage,” or to “unintentional death of an unborn child” after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” No other exceptions are specified in the amendment text.

Retroactive prosecutions of women who were “involved in the assault of her unborn child” or “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” before the bill goes into effect would not be allowed.
If passed, the bill would take effect July 1.

Faith Leaders, Politicians Line Up Behind Tennessee Abortion Abolition Effort

Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley endorsed the bill on Feb. 19, saying it would “provide preborn children with equal protection of the laws.”

“By protecting the lives of preborn children with the same laws that protect people who are born, we are simply loving our neighbors in the womb as ourselves,” Pressley wrote in a social media post.

The issue of abortion abolition has been contentious in the denomination in recent years. In 2022, a leader of the denomination’s public policy arm signed a letter opposing any measures “seeking to criminalize or punish women who have abortions.”

Barrett thanked Pressley for his support.

Barrett and Pody’s bill is also backed by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, a nonprofit whose mission is to “exalt and vindicate the image of God by promoting sound public policy that provides all preborn human beings equal protection of the laws.”

Since the state’s total abortion ban went into effect, the Foundation to Abolish Abortion claims that there were more than 5,000 telehealth abortions “on Tennessee soil” in 2024, and more than 10,000 abortions provided to Tennesseans by clinicians out of state, based on estimates from the Guttmacher Institute.

“Under this legislation, murdering anyone would be made illegal for everyone, ensuring that all humans made in the image of God are equally protected in accordance with the Tennessee Constitution, the United States Constitution, and the Law of God,” the group said in a press release.

Tennessee has had some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country since the state’s “trigger ban” took effect in 2022. The Human Life Protection Act prohibits all abortions from fertilization, with no expectation for rape or incenst. Narrow medical exceptions exist for ectopic and molar pregnancies, but does not cover fatal fetal diagnoses.

Performing an abortion is a Class C felony in Tennessee, resulting in up to 15 years in prison and fines for physicians.

In recent years, lawmakers have made it a felony for companies and delivery services to fulfill orders for abortion pills by mail in Tennessee, made it a crime to help a minor travel out of state for an abortion without parental consent and required school children to watch a video on fetal development.

A measure to encode women’s access to contraception and in-vitro fertilization care very narrowly passed the House of Representatives last year. A group of lawmakers urged Gov. Bill Lee to veto the bill.
Legislation is currently pending that seeks to heavily regulate IVF.

Rep. Monty Fritts, R-Kingston, who has signed on to the bill as co-sponsor, and is running for governor, has repeatedly expressed support for imposing the death penalty on women who receive abortions.

“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” Fritts recently told the Tennessee Holler, later likening abortion-inducing pills to “a cyanide capsule.”

Fritts said he feels abortion should be considered a “capital crime because we have failed to identify that tiny little, jelly-bean-sized baby as a human being. If we kill a human being, we have to say it is murder.”
Fritts did not respond to a request for comment from The Tennessean.

This article was written by Vivian Jones and originally appeared in The Tennessean.