
Indiana Senate Bill 171 will further restrict abortion access in the state if it becomes law, potentially harming people who would fall under the state’s current exceptions to abortion restrictions.
Abortion in Indiana has been restricted since a special session of the state legislature in 2022, according to Associate Professor of Political Science Greg Shufeldt. SB 171 aims to extend restrictions of the current 10 week abortion ban, including a crackdown on abortion pills and legal proof the pregnancy was a result of a few exceptions currently in effect, according to the bill’s text.
If passed, an affidavit saying the pregnancy was a result of incest or rape would be needed to get an abortion in Indiana, according to Assistant Professor of Philosophy Lacey Davidson. The pregnant woman would have to receive an affidavit by the 10th week of pregnancy, according to SB 171. Davidson said people normally do not even know they are pregnant until week six at the earliest.
If a person or a medical access provider mails someone an abortion-inducing drug in Indiana, they would be in violation of the bill if it becomes a law, according to Associate Professor of Political Science Laura Merrifield Wilson. The bill outlines in the first offense, the defendant can face a misdemeanor, and subsequent charges can be elevated to a class six felony.
“If this legislation does pass, this certainly could impact some of our students in terms of their health care options,” Wilson said. “It’s important to pay attention. This isn’t an election year, so they don’t have the opportunity to vote for or against a legislator in November, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that sometimes people say elections have consequences, and these are the consequences.”
Wilson said the odds of the bill becoming law are good. The lower a bill number is, the higher priority it is to get the bill passed. Wilson added the bill has two authors (Sen. Todd Young and Sen. Gary Byrne) and three co-authors (Sen. James Tomes, Blake Doriot and Andy Zay), which is another sign it has a good chance of getting passed. It is a budget year for the Indiana General Assembly, therefore there are higher priority bills in front of it.
Even if SB 171 does not pass, a similar bill could have a chance of getting passed, Davidson said. The general assembly has multiple options to further restrict abortion in Indiana, including SB 245 which would specifically crack down on abortion pills and proposes punishments up to a class five felony, according to the bill. Shufeldt said the thing that would most likely not get the bill passed would be the in-fighting in the Republican Party.
“For people that might be opposed to this bill, one of the things that is kind of frequently reported is that the main sponsor, Sen. Michael Young, doesn’t always seem to be in lock step with the Republican leadership,” Shufeldt said. “And so it’s possible, while the majority of the General Assembly would self-identify as pro-life and probably generally support many of the provisions of the bill, that it would likely be dynamics within the Republican caucus that would prevent this legislation from going forward.”
Shufeldt said the Indiana state government is a Republican trifecta, and there is also a supermajority in the legislature. Shufeldt narrowed the bill down into weighing the policy benefits versus the potential political blowback.
“For example, the need to get an affidavit for a woman to certify that she has been subject to rape or sexual assault,” Shufeldt said. “I think is what many people would probably find beyond the pale, and that is kind of something that other pieces of legislation might not have that might make it a little bit more politically toxic.”
Indiana has been becoming more conservative, Wilson said, and that around 25
years ago, there was a Democratic governor and times when the general assembly was also controlled by Democrats. Wilson said one of the main reasons Republicans have held onto power in Indiana and the state has become less competitive is due to the redrawing of district lines around the 2010 census.
“The party pendulum typically does swing back and forth,” Wilson said. “Once one party [has] been in power for too long, inevitably they’re not able to deliver everything they want or people get too far extreme, they want too much, the pendulum will swing back.”