As the state overreaches with abortion ban, Nashville must protect rights of women | Opinion
For half a century, until last summer, American women lived in a country that recognized their right to reproductive health care. That right is a matter of bodily autonomy and human liberty for women, and it is indispensable if women are to be equal in our society. For those 50 years it was protected nationally, as a constitutional matter.
Then, last summer, as everyone knows, the U.S. Supreme Court changed its mind and it—appallingly, outrageously—overruled Roe v. Wade and took that constitutional right away.
Our State Legislature had anticipated the Supreme Court’s new Dobbs decision, after recent changes to its membership. A year earlier it had passed the most extreme abortion ban in America, and Dobbs allowed it to come into effect. The state government has now imposed its religious views on the people of Tennessee—contrary to the foundational American promise of government disentanglement from religion. If you’ve read the news lately, you know that reactionary extremism has taken hold even more widely, threatening the civic fabric of our city and targeting women and LGBTQ people in particular.
Restoring abortion rights will require a massive political change at the state level, because even amendments to the current law, such as exceptions to save the life of a patient, are a nonstarter in the Tennessee General Assembly.
Nashville must give its answer to this new state of affairs. That answer must protect the rights of our citizens to the fullest lawful extent. And there are actions Nashville can take to defend reproductive rights.
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Nashville can respond by protect women
Our city must ensure that our own local law enforcement will not pursue or investigate any woman about her pregnancy. We must also review our data-collection to make sure that we aren’t collecting any data on our citizens that could be used in such prosecutions.
Second, we must provide all Metro employees, through the insurance coverage that we negotiate, with reproductive health care, and travel expenses to receive it. We can also use our power of contracting to do the same with the employees of any contract partners, as those contracts come up for renegotiation.
Third, Metro can work to receive direct federal aid for the restoration of HIV prevention and treatment programs formerly administered by the state.
As we enter this new territory, as a city, we must be clear that Metro should not pass any legislation that is disallowed under state law, unless that state law is preempted by federal law or is unconstitutional. Such ineffectual gestures will only waste money and time in losing lawsuits, and sap our own strength. It is also important for those of us who believe in American freedom and equality to remember that we can only vindicate those values in the long run if we pursue and achieve them lawfully.
Yet when it comes to the fundamental rights of the people—as is the case with reproductive health care, and also the rights of LGBTQ Nashvillians, and any other Nashvillians who are targeted by the General Assembly—I firmly believe we must forthrightly do everything we can to protect those rights. Nashville must step up in defense of its people.
That has not been our traditional idea of local government, but a new role has now been thrown upon us. Responding in a dignified way is the only course available. Nashville can’t protect the dignity of its citizens if it will not act with dignity itself.
Even more importantly, it is time to summon the verve and creativity of the freedom-loving people of Nashville. We will organize, like other towns and cities and rural counties across the country, in defense of bodily autonomy and human freedom. Nothing will overmatch that, in the long run.
Clay Capp is a public defender and candidate for Metro Council District 6 in East Nashville. Views expressed here do not represent the views of the Metropolitan Public Defender’s Office,
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville must ensure the reproductive rights of women are protected
