Liberals Praise Trump-Appointed Judge for Blocking Tennessee’s Heartbeat Bill

Pro-abortion advocates praised a Trump-appointed judge for blocking Tennessee’s Heartbeat Bill from becoming law.

U.S. District Judge William “Chip” Campbell in Nashville blocked the pro-life measure just hours after Gov. Bill Lee signed it into law Monday. Campbell’s mother, Beth Campbell, serves as a Republican National Committee member for Tennessee, the Tennessee Republican Party confirmed.

“An activist judge barely waited until the ink was dry to promote his own pro-choice view. We cannot allow the lives of unborn children to be jeopardized by radical judges. As your Senator, I will only vote to confirm justices who stick to the Constitution,” said Manny Sethi, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

An activist judge barely waited until the ink was dry to promote his own pro-choice view. We cannot allow the lives of unborn children to be jeopardized by radical judges. As your Senator, I will only vote to confirm justices who stick to the Constitution!https://t.co/BUnFpvmWWn

— Dr. Manny Sethi (@DrMannySenate) July 13, 2020

But Campbell was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in July 2017 and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate in January 2018 in a vote of 97-0.

Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Center for Reproductive Rights asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to block the bill after it passed the Legislature last month.

Campbell opted to wait for the bill to become law to rule on whether to block it. In granting the temporary restraining order Monday, he wrote that he’s “bound by the Supreme Court holdings prohibiting undue burdens on the availability of pre-viability abortions.”

Plaintiffs seeking to block the law quickly let the court know it was signed and became effective immediately, “meaning that nearly all abortions in Tennessee have been criminalized.” The court’s ruling followed shortly after, keeping the law blocked pending a July 24 hearing.

As its name suggests, the bill prohibits doctors from performing an abortion on “a pregnant woman whose unborn child has a fetal heartbeat.”

Other provisions in the bill prevent abortions from being performed based on the sex of the child, the race of the child, or a Down syndrome diagnosis in the unborn child.

Ashley Coffield, president of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, called Campbell’s decision a “victory for patients in Tennessee.”

“This sweeping abortion ban is part of a multi-layered effort to target people who already face systemic barriers to care because of racist and discriminatory policies,” she said in a statement. “As we continue to fight for all of our patients, we’re glad that today’s ruling will allow Tennesseans to continue to seek the health care they choose in their home state.”

Jessica Sklarsky, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, called the Heartbeat Bill “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“It is unconscionable that – in the middle of a public health crisis and a national reckoning on systemic racism – lawmakers are focused on trying to eliminate access to abortion. Abortion is an essential health service, and this law clearly violates the constitutional rights of patients and disproportionately harms communities of color. Tennessee should stop attacking reproductive healthcare and instead work to implement policies that will help marginalized communities,” she continued.

The ACLU of Tennessee praised Campbell’s ruling as a “critical win.”

“But we cannot lose sight of the big picture: that it took a court order to stop these politicians from pursuing a ruthless anti-abortion agenda in the middle of a pandemic, passing a ban that would disproportionately harm Black and brown people. We would urge Tennessee’s elected officials to abandon this destructive, shameful effort and return to the job they were hired for: serving their constituents,” said Anjali Dalal, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.

Like Sethi, Republican Senate candidate Bill Hagerty expressed his disagreement with the ruling.

“I’m grateful to Governor Bill Lee and the Republican-led General Assembly for protecting Tennessee’s unborn,” Hagerty told The Tennessee Star. “The judge’s ruling today is absolutely wrong. As your next Senator, I’ll be a strong voice for the voiceless and confirm constitutionalist judges who will protect the unborn.”

Gov. Lee’s office told The Tennessean in a brief statement that it looks forward to defending the law in the courts.

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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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