Tennessee lawmaker: 'I wouldn't be here today' under current abortion ban

As efforts to amend Tennessee's no-exceptions abortion ban continue to get kicked down the road, Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, told legislative colleagues on Tuesday she could have died without abortion care when she was in her 20s.

Johnson has sponsored a slate of bills aiming to roll back abortion bans in the state, which currently do not allow any legal exceptions, even for doctors who need to perform an abortion to save the life of a pregnant patient.

Two Republican-backed bills aimed at adding some limited exceptions have been continually delayed and were once again rolled on Tuesday for consideration in key committees until next week.

"I want to tell you a story about a young woman, 21, in college, getting married, finding out she has a syndrome called Marfan syndrome," Johnson said Tuesday in a House subcommittee meeting.

When she became pregnant, Johnson said, she was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm, which doctors warned could rupture before the fetus was viable. Treatment would harm the fetus, she was told.

"You're young, married and pregnant," Johnson said. "You know, from all of your physicians, if you were attempt to carry that pregnancy, you would die."

"You have to make a decision. If we had the current trigger ban in place, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have been able to make the decision that I had to make, as a young person who wanted to start a family. But I could not and be healthy and survive with an aortic aneurysm."

Johnson's bills failed along a party line vote in the House Population Health Subcommittee.

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"We did pass a bill out of here three weeks ago that's going to protect the lives of mothers in medical need and physicians," Rep. Ron Travis, R-Dayton, said.

That bill, HB 883, received near-unanimous support in an early subcommittee meeting but has so far stalled amid anti-abortion activist pushback over language they say weakens Tennessee's current law. Some supporters of the law have argued pregnant patients should be in immediate medical crisis before doctors can choose to terminate a pregnancy, an assertion many doctors argue directly contradicts ethical and sound medical practice.

Under the current law, a doctor must knowingly commit a felony to perform any abortion, and Tennessee doctors say many patients are forced to seek out-of-state healthcare for treatment that was legal in the state just months ago.

Democrats like Johnson have continually called for wider abortion access beyond limited legal exceptions, often pointing to general support among Tennesseans for abortion access, but the minority party can make little progress on the issue with the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly.

"I wouldn't be here today if we had the trigger ban in place," Johnson said. "That's what we're asking of women now. I'm not embarrassed, I'm not ashamed of the decision I made. I made the right decision, and I never questioned whether or not I made the right decision. Some of you might think that's terrible.

"I hated the situation I was in, and I hated the decision I had to make. But it was the decision I had to make. I did it, and I didn't look back."

Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rep. Gloria Johnson: 'I wouldn't be here today' under current abortion law