Under grey skies and a cold drizzle, a crowd of about 300 anti-abortion activists gathered on the steps of the state capitol yesterday afternoon to mark the 34th anniversary of the federal Supreme Court’s Roe-V-Wade decision which legalized abortion.
Tennessee Right to Life President Brian Harris says regardless of whether the case will ever be overturned on the federal level, efforts at the state level to change Tennessee’s constitution will continue.
“Our constitutional amendment language has always said, ‘There is no right to an abortion.’ It doesn’t say there shall not be abortion legal in our state. It’s always said that the state constitution is silent on the matter of abortion. That’s all we’re asking that the matter be handed back to the people and their elected officials.”
Cynthia Bennett is President of Nashville’s chapter of the National Organization for Women. Bennett says allowing that language to be in the state’s constitution would mean that abortions could be banned if the Roe-V-Wade decision was overturned. She says her group will continue to advocate against any constitutional resolution, and it will push other legislation to make contraceptives more available.
“There has to be a place in every community where women can obtain emergency contraception. In some places, Tennessee being a very rural state, there are places where pharmacies are not open 24 hours. And if the one that is, if the pharmacists says ‘I refuse to fill this,’ you’ve got a woman, where is she going to go?”
The proposed constitutional amendment passed the state Senate but failed in the House last year, but Right-to-Life advocates say it will be back this session.
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