Bill SB 1 bans effectively all abortions in the state, making exceptions for rape and incest only until the 10th week of the pregnancy. If the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of the mother, it can be aborted until the 20th week. In all other cases, carrying the fetus to term is legally required, as is delivery at a hospital.
Two lawsuits have attempted to block it from taking effect: one based on accusations that it violates the religious freedom of Hoosiers and the other claiming that it violates the state’s constitution. The latter, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana, was denied on Thursday by a county judge. The other case will be heard on October 14, according to Indiana public radio.
“Hoosier women have lost a fundamental right to privacy in medical decisions with this near-total ban, which is extremely cruel,” said state Rep. Sue Errington, according to The Guardian. “I’m old enough to remember before Roe v Wade. And I know that laws like this only ban safe legal abortion. Women are going to suffer, and some will die from this.”
“I feel very disenchanted and very targeted as my state villainizes the profession that I was trained to do here,” Dr. Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN, told NBC Chicago. “(It) criminalizes me as a physician providing abortion care.”
The Indiana law comes days after West Virginia passed its own sweeping ban on abortions, and as numerous other states consider similar bills or, in the case of Michigan, the potential reactivation of a 1931 abortion ban that lay dormant for decades after the US Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that abortion was a legal right across the country.
The high court overturned that ruling in June in the decision on the Dobbs vs. Jackson case, causing abortions to be banned or nearly banned in a majority of US states. In the aftermath, several states moved to try and ban abortions, including Indiana.