Abortion rights activists feared that an effort to publish the names of doctors who perform abortions could be used to identify individual women who had the procedure. In response, the sponsor of the state legislation cut those parts out.

Gone is language that would have required publishing a list of demographic identifiers for the woman – race, age, marital status. Opponents feared the information could be used in very small counties to “out” individuals as having gotten an abortion.

Rep. Matthew Hill, a Jonesborough Republican and Christian broadcaster by trade, told a House committee the bill has been simplified.

“This new amendment makes the bill and would simply require doctors that perform abortion procedures to have hospital privileges. The amendment removes the reporting requirements of the original bill.”

The proposal doesn’t mention publishing the doctor’s name. But the physician – even if the abortion is performed at a walk-in clinic – now must also have permission to operate at a local hospital.

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Hill says he was attacked in the national news arena. He calls his opponents “patrons of the culture of death.”

“There are those who have used the power of reckless and false rhetoric to propel themselves to the national spotlight. They’ve been on national news programs spreading lies about me and about this bill and its intent. Not only have they used their 15 minutes of fame to slander my character on a national scale, they’ve vilified the good people of Tennessee who love and value life. This reckless disregard for the truth and their characterization of me as a terrorist, murderer and more, has been used by their leftist friends to engender hatred and incite the threat of violence.”

The bill, HB 3808 Hill / SB 3323 Beavers, originally was opposed because it required a report that broke down statistics on abortions all the way to the county level.

Opponents said that in very small counties, the demographic information could result in the public identification of a woman who got an abortion – a violation of personal privacy.

The bill would have required:

(1) Identification of the physician who performed the abortion and the physician’s office, clinic, hospital or other facility where the abortion was performed;
(2) The county and state in which the woman resides;
(3) The woman’s age, race and marital status;
(4) The number of prior pregnancies and prior abortions of the woman;
(5) The gestational age in number of weeks of the unborn child at the time of the abortion;
(6) The type of procedure performed or prescribed and the date of the
abortion; and
(7) Pre-existing medical conditions of the woman which would complicate
pregnancy, if any, and, if known, any medical complication which resulted from the abortion itself.

The Senate version of the bill has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee, not the Senate Health Committee. The Senate sponsor of the bill is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mae Beavers.