WTVF's Chris Conte reports on the outcome of a Tennessee House subcommittee hearing, which advanced one antiabortion-rights bill while deferring or withdrawing several others.
The approved bill (SB 1654) would impose new requirements on a woman seeking to donate tissue from an aborted fetus. However, a bill (HB 1758) that would have banned abortion care after 20 weeks, except in cases when the pregnant woman's life is in danger, was withdrawn. According to Conte, the subcommittee also deferred a third measure that would have required a woman seeking abortion care to receive additional information about what would happen to the resulting fetal tissue.
Jeff Teague, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Middle and East Tennessee, expressed concern about the measures, stating, "[W]e're concerned about anything that's going to interfere with a woman's ability to make very private, personal decisions around terminating a pregnancy and how that's handled" (Conte, WTVF, 3/15).


