Chris Lange, FISM News
The Indiana Senate passed legislation over the weekend banning nearly all abortions in the state. The vote marks the first statewide abortion ban to be advanced following the Supreme Court’s ruling last month to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In a special session on Saturday, the state Senate voted 26-20 to pass Senate Bill 1 which bans abortions from the moment of conception, except in cases where pregnancy is the result of rape and incest or in such cases that the life of the mother is in jeopardy. An exception is also made 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.”
Abortions undertaken outside of these limited circumstances will be classified as felonies under the measure, which includes language empowering the state attorney general to prosecute abortion violations at the county level if a local prosecutor refuses to do so.
Ten Republicans joined Senate Democrats in voting against the measure, falling on both sides of the issue. Some moderate GOP members voted against the measure saying that the zero-week ban was too extreme, while some conservative members said the bill didn’t go far enough in restricting abortion, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Indiana Republican State Sen. Sue Glick, who authored the bill, hailed the vote as a victory for life.
“The passage of Senate Bill 1 is a huge step forward in protecting the life of the unborn children in our state,” Glick said in a press release.
“We have put together a bill that would not criminalize women and would protect the unborn whose voices have been silenced for the past 50 years under Roe v Wade. Now, we understand this may not be the final version of the bill, and we are only through the first half of its long journey to becoming law, but we have put together a pro-life framework that, in my opinion, is fair and just.”
Democratic Sen. Eddie Melton, who opposed the measure, said he was “disgusted and disappointed” by the bill’s passage in a statement following the vote.
“I cannot say this enough—Hoosiers, advocacy groups and doctors told us not to pass this bill. I can’t understand why this excessive majority won’t leave doctors alone to do their jobs—the government has absolutely no business being involved in a matter as private and nuanced as abortion,” Melton said, adding, “I can only hope this proposal dies in the House.”
Vice President Kamala Harris chastised the state’s Republican lawmakers for “not understanding how a woman’s body works” during a roundtable discussion with Indiana state legislators on the proposed legislation last week. The comment further underscored the Biden administration’s mixed messaging in terms of referring to pregnant women as “birthing people.”
“For the vast majority of women, by the time she realizes that she is pregnant, she will effectively be prohibited from having access to reproductive health care that would allow her to choose what happens to her body,” Harris said, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Senate vote follows a highly publicized incident involving a 10-year-old pregnant rape victim from Ohio who crossed the border into Indiana to obtain an abortion. President Biden recounted the incident to highlight Ohio’s abortion trigger ban, though authorities in the Buckeye state said her case fell under an exception clause in the ban that would have allowed her to get an abortion.
A man who was in the U.S. illegally has been charged with the girl’s rape.