Statement by Allison Glass, State Director of Healthy and Free TN on hearings from Wednesday on House Bill 977 (Lynn) and House Bill 1340 (Weaver):
On Wednesday, the House Health Committee will hear House Bill 1368. This bill imposes medically unnecessary requirements on clinics that provide abortion. Abortion is already a safe procedure. Tennessee clinics have a strong safety record. This bill is just about making it more difficult and more expensive to provide care.
Instead of creating new and invasive requirements on abortion simply because some people do not want care to be available, we should do more to help ensure that Tennesseans have access to contraception and the information to manage their health. We should also support Tennesseans who want to become parents and take care of their families by ensuring access to affordable prenatal care, protections for pregnant workers and support for pregnant women who are struggling with addiction.
The House Criminal Justice Committee is scheduled to hear a bill that expands the Pregnancy Criminalization Act. Enacted last year, this law throws pregnant women and new mothers who are trying to overcome an addiction to drugs into jail instead of working to ensure access to effective treatment options.
Proponents of the Pregnancy Criminalization Act talk about it as a way to deal with drugs in Tennessee, but the fact is that it flies in the face of the recommendations of medical professionals that are trained to deal with the public health challenge of addiction.
We are concerned with the very real public health issue of addiction in Tennessee. We know that TN has a problem with meth, especially in areas where people struggle with poverty and joblessness, but simply put this bill is not the solution. Instead of separating families and using limited state funds to jail people, we should be working to ensure that people have access to cost effective treatment options. We urge our state's lawmakers to create real solutions, not simple fixes that hurt more than they could ever help.
Every Tennessean should have the support and the access to health services and programs that enable them to manage their health and to care for their families. That is what we need - not bills based on judgment, stigma and personal beliefs. We need serious solutions to the serious challenges that we are facing."
