Tennessee Bill Would Classify Abortion As Murder

A new proposal seeking to crack down on the influx of abortion pills into Tennessee would treat abortion as murder under state law. 

The bill from state Rep. Jody Barrett and Senator Mark Pody says that unborn children are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment and that all laws protecting life in the state should apply to them. The bill would punish anyone involved in taking the life of an unborn child, including the person who provided the pills and the woman who took the pills with the intention of ending the life of her unborn child. 

Barrett told The Daily Wire that his legislation “extends equal protection rights to unborn children” so that the same laws in the criminal code against homicide would apply to people in the womb. 

The proposal comes as data shows that thousands of abortions have taken place in Tennessee despite a trigger law that went into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned. In 2024, there were at least 5,870 abortions facilitated through abortion pills sent into the state in violation of laws making medication abortions illegal. 

“We don’t ban abortion, we have banned the practice of abortion by medical professionals. There is no crime in Tennessee for anyone else other than a medical professional that performs an abortion,” Barrett said. 

He believes his proposal, which would criminalize abortion for everyone involved, would help crack down on the abortion pill problem, which has so far stumped pro-life states. Many traditional pro-life groups have voiced opposition to laws that would criminalize abortion for the mother. 

Barrett says he wants to start a conversation with his proposal and that the numbers show the traditional approach has not worked. 

“My goal in presenting the bill and having it heard is for us to start having that conversation and have a deeper discussion about this topic and where our shortcomings are currently in the law that they’re preventing us from stopping this completely and ridding this practice completely from our society,” he said. 

Local media outlets have emphasized the possibility that a woman could be given the death penalty for having an abortion. Barrett noted that the death penalty has been sparingly used over the last few decades and said that it would be unlikely a woman would be sentenced to death under his proposal. A jury would still have to find a woman guilty and then unanimously agree to give her the death penalty. 

Barrett crafted the legislation with the help of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, a group that seeks to expand equal protection laws to the unborn.

“The equal protection legislation in Tennessee affirms this simple biblical and constitutional standard by making murdering anyone illegal for everyone,” Bradley Pierce, the group’s president, told The Daily Wire. “All image-bearers of God, whether born or preborn, must be treated by our laws as equally valuable and worthy of protection.” 

The legislation was backed by Clint Pressley, the president of the Nashville-headquartered Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. 

“Tennessee now has the opportunity to set an example of how states can protect the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death,” he said. “I am urging the Tennessee legislature to move these bills forward this legislative session. It’s both pro-life and consistent!”

The abortion pill problem has plagued pro-life states for years, with data showing that abortions increased in 2025 from 2024. Some advocates have pinned the blame on a Biden-era Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy that allowed abortion pills to be dispensed through the mail without an in-person doctor’s visit.