4:30 P.M. UPDATE
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Leaders of Indiana’s Republican-dominated Senate on Wednesday proposed banning abortion with limited exceptions — a move that comes amid a political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who came to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy.
The proposal will be taken up during a special legislative session that is scheduled to begin Monday, making Indiana one of the first Republican-run states to debate tighter abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month overturning Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.
The Indiana proposal would allow exceptions to the ban, such as in cases of rape, incest or to protect a woman’s life. Its fate is uncertain, though, because some hardline Republicans want to ban all abortions.
Ohio’s so-called fetal heartbeat law, which bans abortions after cardiac activity can be detected — typically in around the sixth week of pregnancy — led the 10-year-old rape victim to go to Indiana to get a medication-induced abortion on June 30, according to the doctor who performed it.
Indiana Republicans have pushed through numerous anti-abortion laws over the past decade and the vast majority signed a letter in March supporting a special session to further tighten those laws. But legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb had been tightlipped since the Supreme Court decision over whether they would push for a full abortion ban or allow exceptions.
Indiana law generally prohibits abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricts it after the 13th week. Nearly 99% of abortions in the state last year took place at 13 weeks or earlier, according to a state Health Department report.
Elsewhere Wednesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court and said Georgia’s restrictive 2019 abortion law should be allowed to take effect. The law bans most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present, though it does include some limited exceptions.
The appeals court also rejected arguments that a “personhood” provision in the law is unconstitutionally vague. The provision grants a fetus the same legal rights that people have after they’re born.
In Michigan, meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday vetoed portions of a state budget proposal that would have sent nearly $20 million in state funding to anti-abortion causes, including groups that run “pregnancy resource centers” focused on persuading pregnant women to give birth.
Before Indiana lawmakers announced their proposal, the leader of the state’s most prominent anti-abortion group told reporters that the group would pressure legislators to advance a bill “that affirms the value of all life including unborn children” while not taking questions on whether any exceptions would be acceptable.
Indiana Right to Life President Mike Fichter said the vast majority of Indiana lawmakers have “campaigned as pro-life, they’ve run multiple election cycles as being pro-life.”
“This is not the time when legislators should be drafting legislation that would appear that Roe versus Wade is still in place,” Fichter said. “Roe is no longer in place. The Roe shield is no longer there.”
Democrats have criticized Republicans for meeting privately for weeks over the abortion legislation.
“If anything, what we should be spending our time on is preparing, strengthening our safety net before we began to take away access to abortion care in this state,” Democratic state Sen. Shelli Yoder, of Bloomington, said before the proposal was unveiled.
The state’s debate comes as an Indiana doctor has been at the center of a political firestorm after speaking out about the 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio.
A 27-year-old man was charged in Columbus, Ohio, last week with raping the girl, confirming the existence of a case that was initially met with skepticism by some media outlets and Republican politicians. The pushback grew after Democratic President Joe Biden expressed sympathy for the girl during the signing of an executive order aimed at protecting some abortion access.
Indiana’s conservative GOP lawmakers have had a history of conflict over social issues. In May, they overrode a veto by Holcomb of a bill that banned transgender women and girls from participating in school sports that match their gender identity.
That came seven years after Indiana faced a national uproar over a religious objections law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence that opponents maintained could be used to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The Republican-dominated Legislature quickly made revisions blocking its use as a legal defense for refusing to provide services and preventing the law from overriding local ordinances with LGBTQ protections.
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Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta and AP/Report for America writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.
“Governor Eric Holcomb and the Indiana Republican Party have proven throughout this entire process (so far) that their extremist agenda to ban abortion access comes before the economic future of Hoosier families. They have delayed sending families relief checks on three occasions to help them combat global inflation and have failed to produce any legitimate plans to solve the state’s F-rated quality of life rating earned under the Indiana GOP’s 18-year control.
“Hoosiers will now bear witness to a special session where the Indiana GOP will use taxpayer dollars to force women and children to give birth and take away their American right to make their own health care decisions. A politician has no business being in an exam room with a person and their doctor, and this proposal is no doubt a violation of privacy. Indiana Republicans’ own polling reveals Hoosiers do not want them to pass extremist proposals, and if they shove this regressive legislation through the statehouse, Republicans will once again ignore the will of voters and endanger women and girls’ lives in the process.”
