Tennessee lawsuit seeks to challenge abortion law on First Amendment grounds
Lawyer, state representative said law has had chilling effect on perfectly legal speech
A Tennesee lawyer and lawmaker have challenged an antiabortion law because it violated their First Amendment rights.
Attorney Rachel Welty and Rep. Aftyn Behn filed the complaint last month. I had the chance to speak to Welty over the phone about it. The law in question seeks to impose penalties on anyone who helps a minor get an abortion.
Welty was an abortion rights activist who had helped distribute information to young women on the matter. Most of her advocacy is focused on the middle Tennessee area.
“Thinking that my speech could be criminalized, or I could be sued civilly because of it…I think it just made sense,” Welty said.
Behn is a representative in the 51st District of Tennessee, which includes Nashville. She had also been an advocate for minor rights when it came to abortion access. She contended in the complaint that the antiabortion law chilled her speech as an elected official.
One of the central legal points in their complaint is that the word “recruit” is too vague to enforce. It could potentially have a range of meanings. Does that prevent the discussion of out-of-state abortion care? That’s a central question at issue for the two plaintiffs.
Rep. Behn had a tweet about the vague and extreme law that came under fire on the House floor earlier this year. When responding to a request from a conservative colleague to clarify which actions the law would criminalize, bill sponsor Representative Jason Zachary read Behn’s tweet in its entirety, alleging that the tweet violated the law.
They will have a hearing in August on an injunction they sought from a judge to prevent the law from going into effect. The law is working, though, as it started officially on the books on July 1.
As things stand, Tennessee providers can’t prescribe abortion medication, but that doesn’t mean women can’t get Plan C. For a girl who needed an abortion, she would have to have a parent’s letter permitting the travel. But sometimes, young people aren’t in a position where they could get consent from an abusive or manipulative parent. They would then have to go through more complicated processes.
“There's a lot of times that minors don't have the ability to have a parent help them with this,” Welty said.
One of the fundamental problems with parental consent laws is that they assume the parent is a benevolent figure in the child’s life who looks out for them. This discounts the possibility that the parent could be downright abusive or irresponsible and not someone who should make decisions for others.
I’ll report more on this in the future as the case unfolds. I hope everyone is having a good Fourth of July.