SJR127 Is Back

From AP:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - New Tennessee House Speaker Kent Williams has indicated that abortion restrictions and gun rights issues will be at the top of his agenda this legislative session.

The Elizabethton Republican was the surprise winner of the chamber's top post last week when he was joined by all 49 Democrats to beat House Republican Leader Jason Mumpower of Bristol by one vote.

He immediately announced he wanted to quickly pass a long-stalled measure to restrict access to abortions and to expand the areas where people with handgun permits can carry weapons.

Not a lot of information there, huh? Could that "long-stalled measure" be the ghost of Senate Joint Resolution 127, killed last year in committee, which states the following:

Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to protect the life of the mother. 

So, that means our now-Republican controlled state legislature would be able to put (further) limits on women's access to abortions, including a proposed partial birth abortion ban that last year the State Attorney General found "constitutionally suspect" under a 2000 State Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee, Inc. v. Sundquist because it didn't have a provision accounting for the health of the mother. The  Planned Parenthood decision found that the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy is "part of the right to privacy guaranteed by the state constitution." (From the AG's opinion.)