NASHVILLE — More than two years after Tennessee enacted one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, lawmakers are poised to take up a handful of competing bills that could preserve — or further limit and punish — access to remaining reproductive care.
The measures introduced thus far include a proposed law from Republican lawmakers to give family members of women and girls who used abortion-inducing medication the right to file $5 million lawsuits against the drug manufacturers, sellers and distributors.
A bill by Democratic lawmakers would codify into law that neither contraceptives nor in vitro fertilization meet the definition of abortion in Tennessee and are protected from the state’s ban.
A separate bill by a Chattanooga Democratic seeks to insert explicit exceptions to Tennessee’s abortion ban for victims of sexual assault and incest, and to protect maternal physical and mental health. And a largely symbolic bill from Nashville Democrats seeks to restore abortion rights entirely.
In a year in which other contentious policy issues are poised to take center stage — among them Gov. Bill Lee’s push for school vouchers, disaster aid to northeast Tennessee and immigration policies that conform with President-elect Donald Trump’s goals — the bills highlight the continued reverberations of the Supreme Court’s 2023 landmark abortion decision that left it to states, rather than the federal government, to decide abortion rights.
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“Since Dobbs, people genuinely want clarity,” Rep. Harold Love, a Nashville Democrat, said. “These (bills) won’t rise to the level of school vouchers but I hope my colleagues will join us in support.”
Bill seeks protections for IVF, birth control
Love has joined Memphis Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, in resurrecting a bill (SB3/HB14) from last year to clarify contraceptives and the disposal of embryos resulting from fertility treatments are not included in the state’s definition of “criminal abortion” — a Class C felony in Tennessee.
Akbari said she first filed the bill last year in response to a 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision that found embryos created through IVF are considered children under that state’s wrongful death laws.
Prior to the Alabama court’s decision, the Tennessee Attorney General had already issued an opinion that concluded the practice of discarding IVF-created embryos does not constitute abortion.
But, Akbari said, soon after the Alabama decision she started getting calls and messages from women in and out of her district concerned about the potential of Tennessee GOP lawmakers to enact legislation to ban IVF and limit or ban forms of birth control in the future.
This year’s bill has been clarified in an effort to satisfy Republican concerns, explicitly limiting IVF protections to “unimplanted embryos,” an edit Akbari hopes will draw the support of her colleagues.
GOP takes renewed aim at medication abortion
A bill by Rep. Gino Bulso and Sen. Joey Hensley — Republicans from Brentwood and Hohenwald respectively — targets medication abortion.
Medication abortion, pills that can induce abortions early in a pregnancy, have been illegal to prescribe in Tennessee since the Dobbs decision. Since 2022, it has been illegal to distribute the medication “via courier, delivery, or mail service.”
The bill, titled the “Unborn Child Protection Act of 2025” (SB194/HB26), would add an additional right to file suit against a “manufacturer, distributor, seller, or reseller of an abortion-inducing drug” who mailed or delivered abortion pills to the state.
Those rights would extend to family members of women and girls who terminated their pregnancies using abortion medication, who could file civil suits for $5 million in damages – up to five years after a family member’s pregnancy was terminated.
Bulso, the bill’s chief sponsor, did not respond to a requests for comment about the bill that were left with his office and the Republican House Caucus.
Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said the bill would have a chilling effect on access to the medications for still-legal uses – and on manufacturers who supply the medication to Tennessee hospitals for non-abortion services.
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Misoprostol, one component of an abortion-inducing drug regimen, is used in the treatment of miscarriage, to induce labor and treat postpartum hemorrhaging — a potential treatment tool for earnest medical emergencies a state court ruled last year are exceptions to the state’s strict abortion ban.
“It’s a failure in the bill to not include these exceptions,” Coffield said, noting that manufacturers, distributors and package delivery services such as UPS and FedEx aren’t in a position to distinguish whether the medication is being shipped for legal or illegal uses.
“Manufacturers of misoprostol could refuse to ship it at all” to Tennessee, she said.
Coffield also criticized the bill’s “other” chilling effect – the ability of a family member to file suit on his or own behalf as a result of a terminated pregnancy – calling it “this idea you can turn other people in and get damages for someone else having an abortion.”
Two other reproductive rights bills have also been filed thus far, ahead of a legislative deadline to submit fresh bills.
HB179 by Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, a Chattanooga Democrat, seeks to add fresh exceptions to Tennessee’s abortion ban to protect life of the mother and for victims of sexual assault.
And Rep. Aftyn Behn, a Nashville Democrat, and Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, filed a largely symbolic bill (SB187/HB27) to restore abortion rights to Tennessee.
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