In 2020, a so-called heartbeat bill, intended to ban abortion once a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected—which is most likely before a woman even knows she’s pregnant—made its way through the Tennessee General Assembly and to the governor’s desk. As I type this, its implementation has been held up in legal challenges by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
I turned in my final draft of this book in early April of 2022, just weeks before the Supreme Court would overrule and strike down Roe v Wade, so as of writing this note, things are even worse for pregnant people's bodily autonomy than they were when I wrote the book. Hopefully there will come a time soon when the book is out-of-date for positive reasons.
