Tennessee lawmakers, on Friday, passed one of the nation’s strictest abortion restrictions, banning the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected at about six weeks, which often occurs before a woman even realizes she is pregnant.
The “heartbeat” bill follows a wave of similarly stringent anti-abortion measures passed by Republican-majority legislatures in an effort to push the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that guarantees women’s constitutional right to abortion.
