Two pieces of legislation with very different viewpoints regarding women’s reproductive health bit the dust Tuesday during a House Population Health Subcommittee meeting.
Dozens of anti-abortion demonstrators left the room after committee members did not permit Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) to share his testimony on an amendment that would allow a woman to be charged with homicide for obtaining an abortion. The room was then cleared by chair Rep. Michele Carringer (R-Knoxville), and reporters and those slated to testify on other bills on the docket were not permitted to re-enter.
State Republicans lose footing on bill to make abortion homicide; Dems look to protect emergency care
The "Human Life Protection Act" from Rep. Barrett and Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) would have allowed 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. Barrett claimed in a later press conference that it was irresponsible of the media to report that the bill could ultimately lead to the death penalty. That would be the “worst case-scenario” he said, but he did confirm that the death penalty would still possible under the bill. Barrett confirmed that he plans to bring the legislation again next year, unchanged.
Bradley Pierce, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, helped write the bill and traveled in from Texas for the Tuesday meeting. Like Barrett, he accused "pro-life" Republican legislators of not being pro-life enough.
“Pro-life leaders and politicians here are aligning themselves with Planned Parenthood and opposing equal protection, which would outlaw abortion,” Pierce tells the Scene. “That's why we call ourselves abolitionists. We're for life, but we're not pro-life, because that's what the pro-life movement does.”
Foundation to Abolish Abortion president Bradley Pierce speaks in support of HB507, March 10, 2026
It’s the first time such legislation has been brought in Tennessee, though similar legislation has been introduced in other states over the past 10 years through the Foundation to End Abortion, Pierce says. Legislation has not passed in any other state, but Pierce says the bills are seeing progress, with more legislators signing on as they bring fetal personhood bills for consecutive legislative sessions.
Also rallying behind Barrett was Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston), a co-sponsor of the bill and candidate for governor, as well as Breanne Houston, director of the Alliance Women’s Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center with locations in Franklin and Lenoir City outside Knoxville. Houston testified that she regrets receiving an abortion 26 years ago. Tennessee Pastor Network president Dale Walker called on other denominations to join the Southern Baptists in support of such legislation, and Brian Gunter — pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Louisiana who led a similar bill in the Louisiana legislature in 2022 — read directly from the Bible.
Louisiana Pastor Brian Gunter, who works with End Abortion Now, demonstrates in support of HB507 in the Cordell Hull State Office Building, March 10, 2026
In 2024, more than 10,000 Tennesseans traveled out of state to obtain an abortion, while nearly 6,000 terminated pregnancies through medication abortion, according to the latest report from the Guttmacher Institute. Under current Tennessee law, people who take abortion pills they have received by mail are protected, though a bill from Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) is still looking to change that. His bill, which would allow a person who used abortion pills to be charged with wrongful death, passed the House Health Committee on Tuesday.
The group in support of the Human Life Protection Act, who see themselves as “abolitionists,” wants to see that number drop. They also claim to align themselves with those who fought to abolish slavery.
“We condemn [slavery] universally today because of the work of the abolitionists,” said Jeff Durbin, an Arizona pastor and leader of End Abortion Now. “Yes, believers and unbelievers alike, condemn that kind of hypocrisy and oppression of other human beings. But brothers and sisters, nothing's changed, right? Because today it's just a circle around born people, grown people, more developed people, but we will oppress and we will kill this class of people, these smaller human beings.”
Also on Tuesday, the "Maternal Health Care Protection Act" from state Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) and state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) met its demise in committee. The bill would have prevented discrimination by maternal health care providers, following a 2025 report of a Jonesborough woman who was denied care because she was unmarried. This denial was permissible under the “Medical Ethics Defense Act,” which went into effect in 2025 and allows medical professionals to deny care that goes against their “conscience.”
Brothers Justice (right) and Joseph Breton wear armor as they demonstrate outside of the Cordell Hull State Office Building in support of HB507, March 10, 2026
“We were disappointed that Republicans couldn't see the flaw in the bill that they passed last year that allows care to be denied, and that they couldn't — at the very least — carve out pregnant women from that law,” said Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, in a press conference.
“Today's vote is a huge disappointment and part of a pattern," she said of Republican opposition to Behn and Oliver's legislation. "The same extreme politicians who banned abortion in Tennessee keep finding new ways to keep people from getting the care that they need.”
Also on Tuesday, a resolution recognizing Endometriosis Awareness Month as well as a bill that would allow the state to create a grant fund for mothers who experienced stillbirth passed unanimously. Another bill from London Lamar (D-Memphis) and Rep. Harold Love Jr. (D-Nashville) that would ensure emergency departments cannot deny care to pregnant women in active labor passed the Population Health Subcommittee Tuesday 6-4, after passing the Senate in February.
Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi statewide legislative Lead Isabella Bartolucci in the Cordell Hull State Office Building, March 10, 2026
Foundation to Abolish Abortion's Pierce twice pointed out a Planned Parenthood shirt some of the women in attendance wore. It read, “We Decide.”
“That shirt says, 'We decide whether children live or die,'” Pierce says. “Our message is the opposite. Our message is, ‘He decides.’ God, the ruler of the universe, the creator of all of us in our mother's womb, the creator of all these children in their mother's womb — He decides. He tells legislators what legislators are to do, and that is to outlaw child sacrifice or to outlaw murder for all people without partiality.”
Isabella Bartolucci, statewide legislative lead of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi — who was wearing a “We Decide” shirt — quipped in response, “I don’t know, is it Christian to look at another woman’s tits?”
