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Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Denounces Overnight Passage of Extreme Anti-Choice, Anti-Freedom Bill in Tennessee
For Immediate Release: June 19, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
Just after midnight, anti-choice Republicans in Tennessee passed a sweeping set of anti-choice provisions meant to chip away at and ultimately end the right to abortion. Among the bill’s provisions were bans on abortion at almost every stage of pregnancy, including before many women even know they’re pregnant, a forced ultrasound mandate; a requirement to interrogate women about why they’re ending a pregnancy; and criminalizing doctors who provide abortion care.
Rather than showing real leadership to address entrenched white supremacy and police violence or tackle the state’s public health crisis with over 32,000 reported cases of COVID-19, anti-choice Republicans in the legislature and Governor Bill Lee remain laser-focused on their dangerous agenda to ban abortion and roll back reproductive freedom.
Kristin Ford, National Communications Director at NARAL Pro-Choice America, released the following statement in response:
“Tennessee legislators jammed through this extreme bill under cover of darkness, making their priorities crystal-clear: control and punish women and families, rather than help them thrive at a time when our nation is reckoning with pernicious racial injustice and a crippling pandemic. This measure is a panoply of the cruelest restrictions designed to push abortion care out of reach and end the right to abortion once and for all. It is an affront to the values of the 7 in 10 Americans who believe everyone should be able to make their own decisions about pregnancy, without politicians meddling to impose an ideological agenda.”
Anti-choice, anti-freedom politicians who introduced this legislation specifically said their goal was to give the state “multiple shots” at ending Roe v. Wade. Their objectives are clear: control women and restrict their freedom to make their own decisions about pregnancy, effectively outlawing abortion and threatening doctors who provide abortion care with criminal punishment.
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NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all. For more than 50 years, NARAL has worked to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. Since 1969, NARAL has made history, grown to over 2.5 million members, and met the moments that have defined this fight with action, power and freedom. In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”