Indiana introduces heartbeat abortion ban, fetal tissue bills

Indiana state Senator Jim Banks has introduced SB 144, which would ban abortions in the state upon detection of a fetal heartbeat, or as early as six weeks.

“This important legislation would protect unborn Hoosiers’ right to life and also includes important women’s health protections,” said Banks, who has also just filed to run for Congress. “It is my hope that this bill would help continue the decline in abortions performed in Indiana.”

The bill makes it a felony for an abortionist to perform an abortion without checking for a heartbeat or finding a heartbeat yet aborting anyway. It contains an exception for threats to a woman’s life or health.

Heartbeat-based abortion bans apply significantly earlier than the viability cutoff permitted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, but North Dakota has recently petitioned the court to reconsider, arguing that its current abortion precedent “fails to account for advancements in medical science establishing that an unborn child is viable from conception.”

Other pro-life legislation recently introduced in Indiana includes SB 77, a Banks-introduced bill which would ban the use of tissue from aborted babies in research, and legislation from state Senator Jim Tomes to increase legal penalties for buying or selling aborted baby parts.

“I can tell you now in our society today if someone were to do that to a puppy or a cat, the outrage would be enormous if someone were doing that,” Tomes said of dismembering preborn children to obtain their parts. “That we even have reports and stories of this taking place now with little babies is just beyond the human mind to fully understand what a dastardly deed that is.”