INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — A lawmaker in Indiana has announced that he plans to propose a bill in January that will abolish abortion in the state.
State Rep. Curt Nisly, R-Goshen, told reporters this week that he intends to file a “Protection at Conception” bill when the General Assembly reconvenes next year.
“It’s time to bring the Roe v. Wade era to its logical conclusion,” Nisly told The Times. “My goal is to deregulate abortion right out of existence in Indiana.”
As previously reported, Roe v. Wade centered on a Texas woman named Norma McCorvey who sought an abortion over an alleged rape. McCorvey later admitted that she had lied, writing in her book “I Am Roe” that she made up the rape story at the advice of her feminist attorneys to make her case more convincing.
She also never obtained an abortion, but placed her child up for adoption and went on to become a vocal pro-life advocate, even going to court in an effort to overturn the ruling.
“My decisions were wrong and I am fighting with every breath to change what has occurred,” McCorvey, a Roman Catholic, said in 2008.
The majority decision of Roe v. Wade was issued by justices predominantly nominated by Republican presidents.
Nisly says that the Supreme Court isn’t always right as it has issued wrongful judgments on several occasions in American history.
“The Supreme Court has been wrong before,” he stated, “on issues like slavery, on segregation and a host of other issues, and they’ve reversed themselves, eventually.”
He also contended that the court lacks jurisdiction on the matter.
“This is the state of Indiana asserting the powers that are given to them, specifically in the 9th and 10th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution,” Nisly told the Indianapolis Star.
The group Hoosiers for Life is behind the legislation. Executive Director Amy Schlichter was also reportedly the inspiration for a heartbeat bill that would have banned abortion when a heartbeat is detected—normally within a month of conception.
“It’s time that Indiana understands that our legislators are not doing all they can to stop abortions in our state,” she told reporters. “The code is there, but Indiana has failed to use it to stop abortion. Instead, they regulate it, which causes approximately 22 Hoosier babies to die every single day.”
As previously reported, in March, Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a bill that bans the murder of unborn children based on a Down Syndrome diagnosis or any other disability, but stops short of ending all abortion in the state.
“Indiana does not allow a fetus to be aborted solely because of the fetus’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, or diagnosis or potential diagnosis of the fetus having Down syndrome or any other disability,” the bill, introduced by Rep. Casey Cox, R-Fort Wayne, read.
It outlines that the other disabilities include physical and mental disabilities, disfigurement, scoliosis, dwarfism, albinism and amelia.
Lawmakers said that the legislation was necessary as physicians sometimes coerce women to have an abortion because their child is diagnosed with an adverse medical condition.
Planned Parenthood, with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently challenging the law in court.
“This statute does something that the United States Supreme Court has said repeatedly cannot be done,” Ken Falk of the ACLU of Indiana said in July. “It is an attempt by the state of Indiana to interfere with and actually prohibit a woman’s right to determine whether or not to have an abortion.”
Nisly’s bill, if passed, would take the matter even further to ban abortion in all cases, and make the act a crime.
The Times reports that Republican Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb said last month that while he identifies as pro-life, abortion is not at the top of his agenda.
As previously reported, the issue of abortion was likewise a significant topic of discussion and concern in early America. In 1850, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court became the first high court in the nation to declare that abortion must be prohibited at any stage of gestation for any reason.
While other state courts allowed preborn babies to be aborted up to four months of gestation by reason of a “quickening” theory, which stated that a person was not protected until the mother felt them kicking in the womb, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would accept no such argument.
In Mills v. Commonwealth, the court declared that the theory “is not … the law in Pennsylvania, and ought never to have been the law anywhere.” The ruling became a strong precedent that other state courts began to review and follow.
In regard to actual laws on the books, it is recorded that Illinois is the first state to completely outlaw abortion as laws were passed in 1827. By the 1900’s, however, due to the influence of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, nearly every state in the nation prohibited abortion for any reason, with the exception of Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina.
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