Tennessee Amendment 1 abortion measure passes

[beam me up scottie]

Tennessee Amendment 1 abortion measure passes
Already lawmaker vows to back abortion regulations when legislature reconvenes



Tennessee voters by a solid margin backed Amendment 1, a measure that gives state lawmakers more power to restrict and regulate abortions.

The measure was perhaps the most closely watched and most contentious Election Day vote in Tennessee's midterm elections, which had few contested high-profile candidate races this year. It also was one of the most expensive ballot measures in Tennessee history.

...

Backers of the amendment were jubilant, embracing at the offices of Tennessee Right to Life, the campaign headquarters for the effort.

"Obviously for those of us who believe life is sacred, this was the necessary first step toward protection not only for the unborn but for women and girls who fall prey to people looking to profit from untimely or unexpected pregnancies," said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life and a coordinator for the "Yes on 1" campaign, who has devoted much of the past 14 years fighting for the measure to get on the ballot.

Harris said his group's next step is returning to the legislature to persuade lawmakers to restore a package of laws stricken by a 2000 state Supreme Court decision, including requiring a short waiting period for women seeking an abortion, a requirement to provide educational materials and greater regulation of abortion facilities.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/04/amendment-takes-early-lead/18493787/

The Really Crazy Anti-Abortion Strategy on the Ballot in Tennessee
Tennessee out-crazies all the other states with its proposed constitutional amendment.
By Dahlia Lithwick


That’s right. Tennessee is trying to amend its constitution to never protect abortion, ever, under any circumstance. And how did the state get here? In 2000, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in a case called Planned Parenthood v. Sundquist that the Tennessee constitution affords even more protection than the U.S. Constitution to Tennesseans seeking abortions. The court determined that “a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is a vital part of ... the Tennessee Constitution,” and it held that Tennessee could only pass very narrow restrictions on abortion as a result. As part of that decision, the court struck down several laws passed in 1998 by the Tennessee legislature, including a measure requiring hospitalization for second-trimester abortions, an informed consent provision, and a two-day waiting period. Republicans in the state legislature immediately reacted by attempting to amend the state constitution. Those proposed amendments failed to pass the state legislature until 2011. Now it’s on the November ballot.


Don’t be confused by references to rape and incest and the life of the mother in the language of the proposed amendment. As Eleanor Clift writes, “The second sentence is craftily written to leave the impression that exemptions are either in place, or could easily be put in place.” But the proposed wording would in fact allow the state to regulate all those interests out of existence. There is no question that this measure goes far beyond the proposed “personhood” language in other states to ensure that legislatures could pass any future legislation, including regulations that could ban abortions even to save mothers’ lives or to protect incest victims. It would allow laws that criminalize harm to a fetus or even ban access to methods of birth control deemed to be abortifacients.

...

The insidious beauty of Amendment 1 is that it operates as a Trojan horse to permit any and all future regulation. And as one local blogger notes, the fact that state legislators won’t disclose which kinds of measures they seek to pass establishes that this is precisely the point. As Stacey Campfield, a Tennessee senator from the 7th District (Knox County) told the Family Action Council of Tennessee: “After (Amendment 1) passes, I have several ideas but for fear of those ideas being used to help defeat Amendment 1, I will refrain from talking about those at this time. I doubt there are any ideas I would oppose that would restrict abortion in Tennessee.”

This referendum has implications that go far beyond the state borders. As all the states surrounding Tennessee passed more and more anti-choice legislation in recent years, Tennessee came to be the state that neighboring women turned to to obtain services denied to them in Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. This meant that by 2010, 1 out of every 4 abortions in the state was sought by an out-of-state patient. Terrell (director of Choices, a Memphis reproductive health clinic that provides abortion services) explains it this way: “If Amendment 1 passes, the state of Tennessee would quickly join her Southern sisters in passing the kind of extreme regulations that make access to abortion impossible. This is, of course, the goal of the amendment’s drafters and supporters.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/10/tennessee_anti_abortion_amendment_1_voters_will_decide_whether_legislature.html

This is a terrible blow for women in Tennessee and surrounding states.

[alphafemale]

1. "regulations that could ban abortions even to save mothers’ lives"

They don't realize that if the worthless female host dies the potential male dies as well?

[beam me up scottie]

2. They couldn't care less about life.

I knew this would pass but after watching the bastards hug each other and celebrate their victory last night I lost it.

[theHandpuppet]

3. There's no war on women

It's all in our collective imaginations.

[beam me up scottie]

4. Yes.

Hysterical women, panicking over nothing.

How many times have we been told that we don't have to worry about our reproductive rights because the Republicans won't try to overturn Roe v Wade?

[theHandpuppet]

5. Kicking because women's lives matter

[Skeeter Barnes]

6. There were a number of reports of no votes switching to yes on the electronic ballot screens.

I hope my no vote counted. BTW, Nashville voted no on this amendment by a 2 to 1 margin. Memphis and Knoxville had a majority of voters against it as well. All the churches around here had Yes On 1 signs in the yard. Religion has a strong influence on people in the less populated areas.

[KamaAina]

7. I'm shocked. SHOCKED! To find out that vote-flipping is going on in this establishment.

[beam me up scottie]

8. I knew about Nashville, thanks.

I was watching the returns all day and night.

And you're right about the rural areas, this is from LifeNews:

Brain Harris, the Tennessee Right to Life president, told LifeNews previously that the 2000 ruling in Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee v. Sundquist made it so “common sense protections were immediately stripped from state law books including informed consent for women considering abortion, a 48 hour waiting period and a requirement that second and third trimester abortions be performed in regulated hospitals rather than out-patient abortion facilities.”

“We are grateful to God and to the good people of Tennessee for this victory,” Harris said. “Despite millions of abortion dollars flooding our airwaves with deceptive ads, the people of Tennessee saw through the falsehoods and made their voices heard.”

Harris told LifeNews that Yes on 1 coordinated a statewide grassroots campaign heavy on volunteers and smaller financial contributions from individuals, churches and pro-life organizations.

“We recognized that we would never have the financial resources of the abortion industry so began planning long ago to build a team of advocates who could educate and organize their local communities,” Harris said. “That effort paid off, especially in rural regions of the state where volunteers raised funds and awareness of both the amendment and the 2000 court ruling in Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee v Sundquist, a decision which claimed a fundamental right to abortion.”

Harris also gave special credit to clergy and religious leaders throughout the state who made support for the Amendment a priority.

“In the end this could be characterized as pastors and pulpits in opposition to Planned Parenthood’s abortion-profiteering. We owe a debt of gratitude to men and women of faith who refused to accept Tennessee’s designation as an abortion destination and who actively used their influence to promote the protection of innocent human life.”

The ads about this were disgusting, pretending that it's about protecting women from abortion providers.