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Tennessee Senate to consider bill allowing civil lawsuits against abortion pill distributors
Update 4/10/25: Tennessee Senators passed SB 419 Wednesday, with a vote of 25-5.
The bill’s House companion, HB5, passed the House Judiciary Committee on April 9 and will next be heard on the House floor.
4/7/25: A Tennessee bill that would make abortion pill distributors liable in wrongful death lawsuits passed the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee on April 1.
Senate Bill 419 began as a bill that would change the maximum damage allowed in lawsuits, but an amendment added in committee changed the bill’s focus, allowing civil lawsuits against abortion pill distributors if the drugs are used for the “catastrophic loss or injury” incurred in an abortion. The bill also classifies abortion as the “wrongful death of an unborn person.” Tennessee law protects nearly all preborn children from abortion, making the abortion pill illegal in the state for elective abortions.
The bill would not target pharmacists, physicians, delivery services, air carriers, or the women who take the abortion pill. It also does not prohibit the transportation of the abortion pill drugs mifepristone and misoprostol for uses other than abortion.
“This bill is strictly to protect the unborn,” said its sponsor Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald). “We are a pro-life state, and we have seen that out-of-state providers are still sending abortion-inducing drugs into the state.”
Senators heard several testimonies about the dangers of mail-order abortion pills, including stories about coercion and health complications that are left to be managed by the woman at home alone, or by ER or urgent care physicians rather than by the drug’s prescriber.
“One of our clients within the last weeks reports that her boyfriend purchased the pills online and forced them into her mouth, causing her body to begin the abortion process even though she intended to parent,” said Rachel Davis, community relations director of LifeChoices of Memphis.
Cathy Waterbury of Confidential Care Mobile Ministry told lawmakers her organization had easily been able to order abortion pills from India.
“The instruction we received was if there were complications, we were to go to an emergency room, but don’t tell the physician in the emergency room that we had taken abortion pills,” Waterbury said. “This is not health care for women. We must do better for women in Tennessee.”
If passed, the law would help deter mail-order abortion schemes and hopefully prevent situations like one that occurred in Louisiana, in which a young girl needed emergency care after she was coerced by her mother into taking mail-order abortion pills, despite the fact that she was “excited” to become a mother.
The bill is next slated to be heard by the full Senate, and the House version is scheduled for a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on April 9.
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Abortion Pill·By Bridget Sielicki
