Legislative history The state was one of 10 states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. In 2013, state
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) had provisions related to admitting privileges and licensing. They required clinics have hospital privileges and transfer agreement with a hospital. In 2015 Tennessee established a required 48 hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion. The state legislature was one of eight states nationwide that tried, and failed, to pass a bill to ban early abortion in 2017. They tried again in 2018, where they were one of ten states that tried and failed to pass a fetal heartbeat bill. On February 7, 2019, Sen.
Mark Pody filed SB 1236 in the
Tennessee Senate. On February 20, 2019, HB 77 was passed out of a Public Health subcommittee and sent to the full committee. On February 26, 2019, the House Public Health Committee voted 15–4 to send HB 77 to the House floor for a full vote. On February 7, 2019, HB 77 was passed out of the Tennessee House by a vote of 66–21. As of May 14, 2019, the state prohibited abortions after the fetus was viable, generally at some point between weeks 24 and 28. This period uses a standard defined by the
US Supreme Court in 1973 with the
Roe v. Wade ruling and was not a result of state-based legislation. Due to the trigger law prohibiting abortion from the point of fertilization which was adopted on April 22, 2019, abortion became illegal from the point of conception in Tennessee on July 25, 2022, 30 days after the overturning of
Roe v. Wade. In 2026, a bill was proposed that would have sentenced women with the death penalty for homicide for having an abortion. The bill failed in the Tennessee legislature on March 10, 2026, following nationwide backlash.
Judicial history The
US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's
Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. (However, the Supreme Court overturned
Roe v. Wade in ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'', later in 2022.) Tennessee's heartbeat bill and the Texas-style abortion ban have been in court due to pro-abortion rights organizations suing the state of Tennessee. On September 12, 2023,
three women filed a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee over the state's abortion ban, stating that they were denied abortions despite having dangerous pregnancy complications. On January 8, 2024, four additional women and two doctors joined the lawsuit. In October 2024, a Tennessee court blocked enforcement of the abortion ban in certain emergencies, ruling that the medical emergency exception in Tennessee's abortion ban was unclear and violated a pregnant individual's right to life under the Tennessee state constitution. The preliminary order said that abortion must be allowed if a pregnant patient's water breaks too early, the cervix dilates before the fetus is viable, or if a fetus has a fatal diagnosis that threatens the pregnant patient's health. It barred the state from disciplining doctors who performed abortions under those circumstances.
Clinic history Number and usage of clinics Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state declined by 47, going from 128 in 1982 to 33 in 1992. In 2014, there were seven abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 96% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 63% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were four
Planned Parenthood clinics, all of which offered abortion services, in a state with a population of 1,519,130 women aged 15–49.
Anti-abortion violence against clinics Anti-abortion extremists are considered a
domestic terrorist threat by the
United States Department of Justice. On January 22, 2021 — the 48th anniversary of
Roe v Wade — a gunman fired a shotgun through the front doors of
Knoxville's
Planned Parenthood clinic, which was the only abortion provider in
East Tennessee at that time. The gunman was not identified until nearly two years later, when federal court documents related to the
January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building named Mark Reno as the Knoxville Planned Parenthood gunman. Less than one year later, on the morning of December 31, 2021, Knoxville's
Planned Parenthood clinic was set on fire by an
arsonist. The structure was in the midst of a renovation. Firefighters arrived to find that the single-story commercial building had a fire that reached through the roof. The fire, which was quickly put out, caused a "total loss" of the building, according to the
Knoxville Fire Department (KFD). KFD and the federal
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ruled the fire an arson. The arsonist was later revealed to be Mark Reno, who had shot through the clinic's front door less than a year prior. The clinic had to be rebuilt, which took years. Its absence left
East Tennessee with no clinics providing abortion services.
Polling In a 2014 poll by the
Pew Research Center, 55% of adults in Tennessee said that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases and 40% said it should be legal. By 2022, support for legal abortion in the state had greatly increased. == Abortion rights views and activities ==