After filing a lawsuit in 2023 asking for clearer exceptions to Tennessee’s abortion ban, physicians and patients were finally set to take the stand in Davidson County Chancery Court last month.
Seven women who were denied abortions while experiencing dangerous pregnancy complications were slated to testify alongside two doctors on April 27. The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights.
We recap what the state legislature did — and didn’t do — this year at the Capitol
One week before the trial, the state — represented by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office and several private lawyers — made a last-minute appeal backed by legislation passed by the Tennessee General Assembly this year. The legislation (House Bill 1791/Senate Bill 1731) expanded the state’s ability to appeal an interlocutory order of a circuit or chancery court, meaning the state can now more easily appeal a non-final order issued during litigation, stopping a case in its tracks.
Another piece of 2026 legislation repealed the state’s waiver of sovereign immunity on lawsuits that challenge the enforceability of a state law. With sovereign immunity — or government protection from being sued — back in place, the state claims the lawsuit’s basis is moot. However, the plaintiffs have filed an opposition claiming that the law cannot be applied retroactively.
On April 22, the court canceled the trial. It has not yet been rescheduled.
Among the plaintiffs set to testify were OB-GYN Laura Andreson and Allie Phillips, the latter of whom was denied an abortion. Both Andreson and Phillips have run for office in the years since the lawsuit was filed. Plaintiff Dr. Heather Maune, a Nashville-based OB-GYN, says she wanted to be involved with the lawsuit because she feels she cannot properly take care of her patients under unclear abortion laws — something that carries added risk for her patients.
“I know of all the countless hours that myself, the other plaintiffs and our legal team have been working on the case, and I’m really looking forward to our time to tell our story in front of the three-judge panel,” Maune says. “It just feels like we’ve been waiting for a long time, and felt like the rug was pulled out from under us right as we’re about to be on the precipice. It was very disappointing.”
Local attorney Tricia Herzfeld says invoking an interlocutory appeal could become commonplace, whereas before the new legislation, it would typically be used only in very specific and rare instances. Cases would be elevated to the Tennessee Court of Appeals only if the ruling of the trial court drastically departed from constitutional norms, Herzfeld tells the Scene.
An interlocutory appeal adds six months to a year-and-a-half to any case, she notes.
“You’re going to have to build in the fact that if you win on ... anything relating to the government, you’re going to have an automatic appeal that you’re then going to have to get through that whole system before you can get the case back down to trial court and get to trial,” Herzfeld says. “It’s delaying justice for harmed people across the state.”
Chancery court ruling adds several carve-outs for health of mother
This isn’t the first time the state has tried to get the abortion lawsuit delayed or thrown out. The Tennessee General Assembly passed some narrow abortion carveouts in 2025. A three-judge panel ruled against the state in October to allow the trial to continue. In 2024, in a separate lawsuit, the Davidson County Chancery Court ruled that Tennessee doctors who provide abortions during a medical emergency to protect the life of the mother will not be punished.
The 2025 law specifically permitting abortions in cases of molar and ectopic pregnancies was a good addition, Maune says, but still left questions.
“It still is very unclear and leaves a lot of gray zone in how interpretation could be made as a practicing physician,” Maune says.
It’s not the first time there have been big changes to the court system on Skrmetti’s watch. In 2022, the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted rules establishing a three-judge panel to hear constitutional challenges to state laws — challenges that were previously heard by the Davidson County Chancery Court.
That move was in an effort to consistently win constitutional challenges to state laws, says Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville), who made a plea on the House floor this year against legislation allowing more legal power for the attorney general’s office.
“Their argument was, they were losing constitutional cases — constitutional challenges to their unconstitutional laws — just because they were being heard by Davidson County Chancery Court judges,” Clemmons tells the Scene. “But that’s not why. It’s because the laws were unconstitutional.
“I’ve always been concerned and remain concerned about the attorney general,” Clemmons continues. “The attorney general is an unchecked office. Nobody has the ability to check him or remove him from office in the state government.”
