Recently, the Indiana state Senate pushed through a new bill that seeks to ban almost all forms of abortion, becoming the first state to issue such a ban in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
As part of a special session held on Saturday, the Senate for the state pushed through Senate Bill 1, which seeks to ban all abortions from the moment of conception. The bill labels all abortion practices as a felony, it does however issue exceptions for incest and rape, and as needed to protect the life of the other. The new bill also issues power to the state attorney general to go after abortion cases at a county level if the prosecutor of said county refuses to go through with prosecuting the abortions. The bill itself managed to squeak its way through the Senate vote with a result of 26-20.
The bill itself blocks all abortions, with very few exceptions. Firstly, the abortion is labeled as legal if “[t]he physician determines, based on reasonable medical judgment, that an abortion is necessary to prevent a substantial permanent impairment of the life of the pregnant woman.”
If the pregnant woman in question is under the age of 16, abortion is labeled as legal if the pregnancy was caused by either rape or incest, and the gestational age of the unborn child is less than 12 weeks. If a pregnant woman is 16 years of age or older, abortion is labeled as legal if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest and if the unborn child is less than eight weeks old. In any case, the pregnant woman must give the doctor “a notarized affidavit, signed by the woman under penalties of perjury, attesting to the rape or incest. The physician shall place the affidavit in the woman’s permanent health record,” explains the bill.
The bill also issues an example of an exception in cases “where the fetus suffers from an irremediable medical condition that is incompatible with sustained life outside the womb, regardless of when the child is born.”
For any abortion falling under these exceptions, said abortion is only lawful if it is performed by a licensed physician, and carried out at either a surgical center or a hospital. If the procedure is carried out by making use of abortifacient drugs, the patient must be administered the drug in front of the doctor, who is required to carry out an exam and inform the patient about the effects of the drug. The woman must then consent to the procedure unless the abortion is to save the life of the mother.
The bill itself made it through the Senate with a vote of 26-20; 26 Republicans voted in favor of the bill while 10 jumped ship to join Democrats in their stance against it. As reported by the Indianapolis Star, the opposition to the bill was split: moderates stood against the bill because they thought it was far to expansive, and the more conservative senators stood against the bill claiming it did not go quite far enough.