Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization and provides no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother.[1][2][3] Tennessee's abortion legislation provides no explicit exceptions for the pregnant patient’s health.[1] It makes an exception for an “affirmative defense” for emergencies, but the vagueness of what constitutes an emergency means that physicians hesitate to provide abortions even when the mother's life is in jeopardy.[1] Attempts to codify the exceptions into law have been rejected by Republican politicians in Tennesse.[1]
The ban took effect on August 25, 2022, thirty days after the Tennessee Attorney General notified the Tennessee Code Commission that Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022.[4][5][6][7] Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, it became the only state with no direct exception in case of risk to the mother's life; rather, there was an affirmative defense included in the ban, meaning that someone who performed an abortion could be charged with a felony, but only had an opportunity to prove that the procedure was necessary — either to prevent the patient from dying or to prevent serious risk of what the law calls "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."[8]
The number of abortion clinics in Tennessee decreased over the years, with 128 in 1982, 33 in 1992, and 7 in 2014. There were 12,373 legal abortions in 2014, and 11,411 in 2015.