The near total ban on abortion in Indiana is now in the hands of Governor Eric Holcomb.
Late Friday, the Indiana Senate voted 28-19 to accept Senate Bill 1 as passed by the House earlier in the day – making the legislature the first in the nation to vote to restrict abortions since the United States Supreme Court opened the door by overturning Roe v Wade in June.
“It makes Indiana one of the most pro-life states in the country,” said Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Evansville.
The governor did not comment on the details of SB 1 but said he was “pro-life” and called on lawmakers to address the issue in the special session.
“We have the opportunity to make progress in protecting the sanctity of life, and that’s exactly what we will do,” he said in a tweet after the Supreme Court ruling.
The bill passed the House, 62-38 Friday afternoon. The 71 Republicans in the House were split on the issue, with nine voting against the bill. The party is split on the issue, with some saying the bill goes too far in restricting abortion and others saying it doesn’t go far enough.
McNamara passed the bill in the House. She said Friday that the purpose of the bill was to strengthen protections for women and babies. The majority of Republicans wanted to see a stronger bill with no exceptions for rape and incest, but most ultimately settled for what they could pass.
“At the end of the day, they’re considering whether to somehow eliminate 99% of abortions in the state of Indiana,” she said after Friday’s vote.
No Democrats voted in favor of the bill.
Friday’s late-night vote capped two dramatic weeks at the Indiana Statehouse, capping a 13-hour marathon of debate on the controversial measure.
As the soft-spoken House Chaplain led the chamber to invoke the opening of the final day of the special legislative session – called to pass financial aid but co-opted to ban abortion after the Dobbs decision of the Supreme Court in late June – a small but loud contingent of abortion rights protesters nearly drowned out their plea to God with chants of ‘ban our bodies’.
The crowd of protesters flocking to the Statehouse had dwindled considerably since the abortion debate began last week. A dozen people holding signs watched the proceedings from large windows at the back of the House chamber and another dozen, including several anti-abortion activists, dotted the viewing gallery.
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Probably all were disappointed by the bill passed on Friday, which prohibits abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormalities and when the life of the pregnant person is in danger.
Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Hoosiers support at least some degree of abortion access.
Anti-abortion groups have always opposed SB 1 because of the few instances in which it would still allow abortion. Last week, Indiana Right to Life said he “didn’t wait 50 years for Roe’s complete reversal against Wade for this.”
On Thursday evening, the majority of Republicans in the House tried to remove the exceptions to the ban on abortion in cases of rape and incest. That effort failed, as it did last week in the Senate.
Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis, is one of the most extreme abortion opponents in the chamber and has backed a failed effort to turn the bill into a total abortion ban, with no exceptions. On the floor Friday, Jacob said he would vote against SB 1 because “it’s a weak, pathetic bill that still allows for the murder of babies.” Jacob lost his Republican primary race in May.
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Jacob’s comment infuriated at least one of his fellow lawmakers.
Rep. Renee Pack, D-Indianapolis, told the chamber she had an abortion in 1990 at Fort Hood, central Texas, while serving in the military. Pack was married and already the mother of two children. She said she had to choose between having another child or continuing her military career.
“After everything I’ve been through in my life…I had to go to the Statehouse to have my co-workers call me a murderer,” Pack said, raising his voice. “Sir, I’m not a murderer. And neither are my sisters. We’re pro-choice. That’s what we are.
“We believe we have control over our own bodies.”
It wasn’t just the amendments to make the bill tougher that were defeated. Lawmakers also rejected an amendment that would have allowed abortions due to rape or incest up to 20 weeks after fertilization instead of 10, as is currently the case in the bill. Nine Republicans joined 29 House Democrats in voting for the expansion — one of many illustrations of the rift that has fractured the majority caucus over the past two weeks and made the bill’s passage a delicate needle to thread.
The struggle for the Republican Party was perhaps best described by Rep. Ann Vermilion, R-Marion, who reminded the chamber of her GOP bona fide — limited government, fiscal conservative, Friday night lights, Sunday church — before admitting how the last two weeks have challenged his beliefs.
It is not uncommon during long debates for legislators to walk around and chat outside the chamber. Vermilion’s speech, however, seemed to grip his colleagues. Several reps wiped away tears as they sat in their seats, and a few people openly wept backstage.
Holding back her emotions, Vermilion said she had struggled to reconcile the “pro-life” platform of her party and her religion – tenets so central to her identity – with her own “pro-woman, pro-choice”. Feelings, she says, that three-quarters of her male colleagues cannot understand.
“The last two weeks have changed me profoundly,” Vermilion said. “I have evolved in my ideology in ways I never imagined.”
She said that despite her strong Christian faith, religious ideology has no place in the legislative process. She said she supported protecting life when a fetus could be viable outside the womb, but she was also a “pro-woman, pro-choice Republican” and could not support the zero-week abortion ban in the bill. She said she thinks there are a lot of Republican women who have the same common ground.
Democrats have derided the bill as cruel, dangerous and will result in a “forced pregnancy”.
“The government shouldn’t be making health decisions for women,” said Rep. Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis. “The decision to have an abortion is extremely personal, a decision that should be left to the woman and her doctor.”
Last week, the Indianapolis business community joined a long list of organizations — including every major medical association — in opposing the legislation over fears of the economic impact such a ban would have. will have on the state. Already, a major event has said it is “deeply disturbed” by the proposal. Gen Con President David Hoppe said Wednesday that if the state passes SB 1, it “would make it harder for us to stay committed to Indiana as our long-term annual home.”
Visit Indy said conventions and major trade shows have asked for “clarification on what’s going on with the bill and how it’s progressing.”
The House made several changes to the bill that began in the Senate, including:
- End the licensing of abortion clinics, requiring medical and surgical abortion procedures to be performed in hospitals or hospital-owned outpatient surgery centers.
- Removing new criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions.
- Repealed a provision that granted the attorney general the ability to prosecute abortion and other crimes in counties in which a prosecutor declines to prosecute. Instead, the House added the creation of a task force to study cases where prosecutors make “a blanket refusal” to enforce certain laws.
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Last week, the Senate passed the bill by the narrowest of margins. Several senators said they voted in favor of the bill only to advance it through the legislative process. They had hoped the House would tighten the exceptions that would continue to allow abortion.
Arguably, however, the House has expanded the exceptions – albeit incrementally. The Senate had written an exception for abortion in cases where the life of the pregnant person was in danger. The House amended this to include “permanent harm” to physical health, in addition to the life of the pregnant person. The House also removed language backed by senators to require victims of rape and incest to obtain a notarized affidavit stating the reason for their abortion.
The Senate would have given girls 15 and under 12 weeks to get an abortion, while giving only eight weeks to women and girls aged 16 and over. The House version grants 10 weeks for all victims of rape and incest.
Late Friday night, Sen. Sue Glick, R-LaGrange, said she agreed with those changes and urged her House colleagues to endorse the House version.
Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, who voted no on the Senate version of the bill because he didn’t think it was strong enough, said the bill returned by the House was worse. He urged his colleagues to vote against passage and continue to work on the bill.
After the nearly 10 p.m. vote, the abortion bill is now headed to the governor. If Holcomb signs it, the law will go into effect on September 15.
If he vetoes it, lawmakers could replace it with a simple majority in each chamber.
Call IndyStar education reporter Arika Herron at 317-201-5620 or email her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @ArikaHerron.
