After years of setbacks in battles with conservative state legislatures, one women’s health group is going back on the offensive.
NARAL, one of the country’s most prominent reproductive-rights groups, has launched Tennessee Total Access, the first of a potential series of programs aimed at organizing pockets of pro-choice support in deeply conservative states.
The group launched the project hoping to capitalize on a favorable ruling in the Supreme Court’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision, which found that Texas’ laws requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles placed an undue burden on abortion access.
Tennessee has similar laws on the books that abortion-rights activists and groups like Planned Parenthood are looking to challenge. The program also aims to make an example of U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-7th District), who chaired a committee investigating anti-abortion activitists claiming to show Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of aborted fetal tissues. No investigation has turned up any wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. NARAL has no illusions about preventing the popular congresswoman’s reelection; the plan is to organize state opposition to her positions.
See more details in the Business Insider article at bit.ly/NARALtenn.
