Bills clashed in the Tennessee General Assembly this week as Republicans pushed for abortion to be classified as homicide and Democrats pushed for expanded guarantees of health care for pregnant people.
The “Human Life Protection Act,” sponsored by Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon), was filed as a caption — or placeholder — bill in 2025, with the official language added this month via a House amendment.
The bill would allow homicide charges — including first-degree murder — to apply in cases involving “unborn children.” As it was originally presented, this means fetal homicide charges could ostensibly be brought against a person for receiving an abortion. Those charged with first-degree murder in Tennessee can be sentenced to life imprisonment, life without parole or, in certain cases, the death penalty. The bill also adds “notwithstanding” language, meaning that these provisions prevail over any conflicting provision of law. This would elevate assault and homicide statutes above abortion law.
Bill co-sponsor Pody told the Scene this week that he’s struggled to find support in the Senate for the bill to move it along, but his position on the matter is clear.
“I’m going to support whatever pro-life legislation I think would save babies’ lives,” says Pody. “I’m not trying to put more people in prison or anything like that, I’m just trying to save babies’ lives. Absolutely there’s life in that womb, and I believe when we take that life, it is murder.”
Barrett confirmed to the Scene this week that the amended bill, if it became law, could result in someone facing the death penalty for obtaining an abortion.
“Is it possible?” Barrett said. “Yes. Is it likely? No.” He argued that most people who commit homicide in the state aren’t sentenced to death, especially women.
“This is a red-herring argument that is just trying to scare people, and all we’re trying to do with my bill is make sure that the only innocent victim involved in an abortion, completely innocent, is the baby. We just want the law to apply evenly to everyone.”
According to a report released in September by advocacy nonprofit Pregnancy Justice, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes between June 2022 and June 2024, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. In 268 cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the pregnant person. In nine cases, a person was charged with possession of abortion medication or attempts to obtain an abortion.
Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood executive director Francie Hunt speaks at a press conference in the Cordell Hull Building, Feb. 24, 2026
State Sen. Charlane Oliver and state Rep. Aftyn Behn — both Nashville Democrats — brought the “Maternal Health Care Protection Act” this week, a bill by Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi.
“Tennessee is facing a maternal health crisis, and it’s one that we no longer can ignore,” Oliver said during a press conference Tuesday. “While we stand here pushing for the ‘Maternal Health Care Protection Act,’ we have other lawmakers in this building pushing to put women to death simply for having an abortion. They are focused on the wrong things, and we are focused on the right things.”
Behind this bill is the “Medical Ethics Defense Act,” which went into effect in 2025 and allows medical professionals to deny care that goes against their “conscience.” Behn shared testimony from a woman who was recently denied a scheduled sterilization procedure in Nashville to protect her “sacred fertility.” Bill co-sponsor Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) said an East Tennessee woman was denied care from an OB-GYN because she was unmarried.
There are very slim exceptions to Tennessee’s ban on abortion. Davidson County Chancery Court has ruled that Tennessee doctors who provide abortions during a medical emergency to protect the life of the mother will not be punished.
The “Maternal Health Care Protection Act” mirrors another bill from Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis), which passed the Senate on Thursday and is due to be heard in a House subcommittee next week. Senate Bill 1681 would prohibit hospital emergency departments from denying medical care to a pregnant woman who is in active labor or experiencing an emergency medical condition — part of a slate of maternal-health-related legislation that Lamar has focused on during her tenure at the legislature.
According to a 2025 report from March of Dimes, Tennessee ranks 48th out of 48 states for maternal mortality. Black women are nearly twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women.
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“If we truly value life, that value must extend beyond the unborn,” Oliver said. “It must include assurance that a mother survives pregnancy and childbirth. It must include assurance that she survives complications, and it includes protecting her health in the same way that we claim to protect fetal life. You cannot claim to stand for life while blocking policies to prevent mothers from dying.”
This year, South Carolina and Missouri also filed legislation pushing for fetal personhood, as announced first by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, which cites biblical principles as the motivation for such legislation. Tennessee’s “Human Life Protection Act” crosses into the in vitro fertilization world — another hot topic in conservative Christian circles. Tennessee was the first state to explicitly protect access to IVF as well as birth control in legislation that went into effect in June. The Alabama Supreme Court also ruled in 2024 that embryos created via IVF have the same rights as people after a couple sued a fertility clinic over the accidental destruction of their frozen embryo.
Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston), a co-sponsor of the “Human Life Protection Act,” is even more explicit about his beliefs — he has called for the execution of those who obtain or provide abortions, as first reported by TN Repro News. He also teased additional legislation on the "sanctity of life,” although the details of that yet-to-be filed bill are unclear.
“Unfortunately, decades of an error, Roe v. Wade, has brought up a culture of people that look at the life of the unborn much differently,” Fritts tells the Scene. “I want women and their husbands and their boyfriends and the doctors to know that they're committing murder when they’re doing abortion, and that we should stop them.”
Fritts continues, citing scripture as the reasoning for his beliefs: “Doctors who knowingly discard little babies that have been conceived as part of an IVF process ought to face life in prison. I think those that play a role in an abortion — doctor, nurse, mother — ought to face that same kind of sentence.”
Fritts said on Thursday that he also plans to file legislation allowing life in prison for medical professionals who perform therapeutic or surgical gender-affirming care to anyone, including adults, and a punishment of up to life in prison or the death penalty for anyone who commits human trafficking or rape. Fritts says he is currently seeking a Senate sponsor, and his objective is to "reduce these crimes." In Tennessee, gender-affirming care for adults is not illegal, but it has been outlawed for minors.
