INDIANAPOLIS — The leaked U.S. Supreme Court document outlining the majority’s opinion would transform abortion access in the United States, upending a 50-year-old precedent and allowing states to limit access to abortion healthcare.
Indiana’s leaders, an outlier conservative state with no pre-existing abortion ban, would need to hold a special session to change Indiana’s law but neither the governor nor chamber leaders, all Republicans, will share details.
Sen Pro Tem President Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, said that no final decisions on abortion access will be made until the final Supreme Court decision comes down. The court typically releases opinions on controversial cases in late June.
“We’ve been in conversation since the (2022) session about that and none of us know obviously what the Supreme Court is going to do. We got a sneak peek but we don’t know exactly what any opinion is going to say; we don’t know exactly when it comes down,” Bray said. “We really have to wait and see what the opinion says when it comes down.”
Bray said internal discussions about abortion access ranged from total bans to the 15-week ban under consideration at the Supreme Court. Neither he nor House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) would specify whether their discussions on abortion access included exceptions for rape, incest or health of the parent.
“There’s a spectrum that we may land on in our caucus and we have to see where the Supreme Court lands,” Bray said. “We’re going to have a full vetting of that issue – we’re going to have hearings, we’re going to have people… come and weigh in and talk about their perspective on it.
“We’re going to take all of those things into consideration to see where we land.”
Previously, Gov. Eric Holcomb said he would wait until he saw the final decision before acting. The General Assembly cannot call itself into a special session, pending an unrelated lawsuit, and must have the approval of the governor.
House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, said his caucus remained committed to Indiana’s current law protecting abortion access, which allows abortions up to 22 weeks after the last menstrual period.
“Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen from House Republicans in the past couple of sessions, is that they continue to go farther and farther to the right and it’s become, frankly, extreme,” GiaQuinta said. “I wouldn’t put anything past them that they would enact a complete or total ban.”
When asked whether Indiana’s social service programs were prepared for the influx of need following a Roe v. Wade reversal, Huston seemed confident that previous funding would fill the gap.
“We’ve made significant investments in supporting women’s health and we absolutely will continue to build on those investments. We’ll continue to look at opportunities to support women and children,” Huston said. “We recognize that we’ll need to do more of that and we’ll make those investments. We’re committed to helping women.”
However, Indiana lags in several important sectors of maternal and infant health.
About 27.2% of Indiana’s counties are considered maternity care deserts, defined as an area with no hospital offering obstetric care, no birth center and no obstetric providers. An additional two dozen counties had low-to-moderate access to healthcare, according to a 2020 report from the March of Dimes, a children’s advocacy organization.
Additionally, Indiana has some of the lowest public health spending in the country, spending $55 per person compared to the national average of $90 per person.
When pressed specifically about whether Indiana’s investments had worked, pointing to Indiana’s dismal maternal mortality rate, Huston said “we’ll just continue to keep making investments.”
Indiana has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the country, exceeded only by Louisiana and Georgia. In 2019, 60 pregnant people died during pregnancy or within one year postpartum. Indiana hasn’t reported maternal mortality numbers during the pandemic, but data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that deaths increased between 2019 and 2020.
In comparison, the CDC reported just two deaths related to legal abortion in 2017, reporting that the fatality rate from 2013 to 2017 was less than one death for every 100,000 abortions.
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