Tennessee: Miscarriage Will Be Murder — Legislature Passes Embryo Bill
The Tennessee House last week voted 80-18 to make miscarriage — or the killing of any fertilized egg — murder. Last night, the Tennessee Senate passed by a 28-2 margin a companion version of the bill. The bill specifically includes all embryos “at any state of gestation in utero.†Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam has not indicated if he will sign the bill.
To be clear, this bill goes further than covering, say, a violent attacker harming an expectant mother who then, unfortunately, miscarries. This bill, House Bill 3517 and the Senate’s companion, makes anyone’s actions that presumably cause a miscarriage murder. Opponents of the bill question how law enforcement would actually enforce this law or determine if someone’s action was a direct cause of a miscarriage.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reports today:
Sen. Beverly Marrero, D-Memphis, told Beavers the measure would be construed to require a pregnancy test for “every woman who is shot.”
…
In the House, Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville, the law could now could lead to a business owner who allows smoking being charged when an employee miscarries because of secondhand smoke or charges against a motorist who causes a careless minor accident that resulted a miscarriage.
“It seems to go too far,” Stewart said. “What’s the limiting factor?”
…
Rep. Jeannie Richardson, D-Memphis, said that about 50 percent of all conceptions “miscarry naturally” before the embryo reaches eight weeks and the new law is vague enough to allow prosecutions in such cases.
Rep. Matthew Hill, R-Jonesborough, said Democrats were “playing the ‘what if’ game” he knows of no unwarranted “horrible instances” of prosecution in other states with similar laws covering embryos.
In other words, the law is poorly-written, poorly-conceived, and based on other poorly-written bills in other states, and an aggressive prosecutor has room to misuse the law — and the legislature knows it.
“Think this ‘fertilized egg-as-person’ thing hasn’t gone far enough?” Robin Marty at RH Reality Check asks, and adds:
How exactly do you prove that a miscarriage happened as a result of a crime? Or that she wasn’t just late? Or miscarrying on her own?
With so many potential issues to enforcing the legislation if it becomes law, it’s hard to see this as anything but a bill meant to validate the idea of a fertilized egg as a person.
Bottom line: Your miscarriage could land you in jail. Think this is far-fetched? Read this.
“Now, they’re looking to criminalize harm to embryos, the cells that are formed before a fetus develops eight weeks after conception,” Think Progress notes:
Including Tennessee, 38 states have fetal homicide laws — 23 of which apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy. As a result of these laws, some women are being unfairly charged with harming their unborn children when they lose their babies during pregnancy.
The Tennessean notes:
Opponents said charges of harming an embryo will be difficult to prove because many pregnancies end naturally at that stage. They suggested the measure really is meant to set up future battles over abortion.
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State law limited prosecutions to harming a “viable fetus,†defined as somewhere around the 32nd week after conception until last year, when the law was amended to apply to any fetus. But one of that law’s sponsors, Republican Rep. Joshua Evans of Greenbrier, said backers did not realize then that humans are not typically referred to as fetuses until the eighth week of development. Before that stage, they are usually known as embryos.
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According to the National Institutes of Health, roughly half of all fertilized eggs die before reaching full term, with the rate highest during the embryonic stage. As a result, it will be difficult for prosecutors to prove that an embryo miscarried because of someone else’s action and not from natural causes, predicted Rep. Jeanne Richardson, D-Memphis.
“It is nature’s way, God’s way, of protecting our species,†she said. “I think your original bill may have been OK and we voted for that. I think extending that would be iffy.â€
Opponents gradually linked the measure to the abortion debate.
Rep. Johnnie Turner, D-Memphis, said the measure would give “veiled support†to the anti-abortion movement by establishing that embryos can be crime victims. Once that principle had been accepted, embryos could be recognized as persons under other aspects of the law.
Haslam last week allowed the Tennessee infamous “Monkey Bill” to become law without his signature. Tennessee now has a law that protects teachers who teach creationism, and those who welcome “debate†on culture war issues like global warming.
Haslam asked the legislature to drop their “Don’t Say Gay” bill, but the legislature is expected to pass it this week, their final week in session.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
