Groups assail Fowler’s abortion amendment
NASHVILLE (AP) — A coalition of groups opposed to an anti-abortion amendment pending in the state Senate on Tuesday called it “an unprecedented assault on the judicial system in Tennessee.”
The coalition, headed by the local chapters of Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, said the abortion amendment sponsored by Sen. David Fowler, R-Signal Mountain, also was an attack on women and Tennessee’s Constitution.
In a lawsuit seeking to overturn a state abortion law four years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled the Tennessee Constitution contains a more expansive right to privacy than the U.S. Constitution.
Fowler has said he considers that judicial activism. His proposed amendment would specify that nothing in the state constitution would provide a greater right to an abortion than is granted under the federal one, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.
His hope is the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion will be struck down on the national stage. If that happened now, abortions would still be legal in Tennessee. If his amendment passes, it would not.
Rebecca Brown, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, spoke on behalf of the Tennessee Alliance for Choice during its news conference Tuesday at the Capitol.
“Just because we have a lottery doesn’t mean we should gamble with our state constitution,” she said. “The federal constitution sets floors, if you will, minimum standards. The framers knew very well the minimum was not what we aspired to. The states are charged with evaluating and tailoring our rights to fit our needs and desires.”
She said Tennessee has distinguished itself with a constitution granting greater individual liberties than the federal constitution.
“This is not the time to be saying whatever Washington decides is OK with us,” Brown said. “That’s an abdication of our responsibility.”
She said doing so “is not only a bad idea, it’s a threat to the federalist system we depend on.”
Kathy England Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition against Domestic and Sexual Violence, called Fowler’s proposal “a direct attack on a women’s right to make these choices.”
She said that, statistically, one is six women in the United States will be raped in her lifetime, and that some percentage of those assaults result in pregnancy.
“There are many women whose choice of whether to get pregnant is taken away from them,” Walsh said. “This would take away their right to decide what to do about it.”
Mary Francis Lyle of the Women’s Political Caucus said her group’s concern is that the issue is much broader than whether or not a woman can choose to have an abortion in Tennessee.
“This is an attack on the Tennessee Constitution,” she said. “To go after the legal rights of a minority group — in this case, young women — sets a dangerous precedent. We believe a person can be both anti-abortion and pro-constitution. The Tennessee Constitution is there to protect minorities from the will of the majority.”
Fowler’s resolution has been read once in the Senate, and is scheduled for two more readings in the next week. It has to pass in two consecutive General Assemblies, the last time by a two-thirds vote in each house, and then be approved by voters in a general election in order to take effect.
The earliest Fowler’s amendment could be considered by the electorate is 2006.
Fowler said he does not believe the people of Tennessee have ever adopted anything granting a greater right to abortion than the federal constitution allows, no matter what the state Supreme Court says.
“This was a court decision,” he said. “All I’m asking is that the people decide whether to adopt the court’s ruling or put the law back where it was in 2000.
“The question is, do you want the elected Legislature or the state Supreme Court to determine our policy?” Fowler said. “This is not a case of the government making or not making policy. Policy will be made. The question is, who should make it?”
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Tennessee General Assembly: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us