Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization, except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".[1][2]
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.[3][4][5][6] 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."[7]
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.