Four years after Tennessee “trigger law,” poll shows Tennesseans favor abortion ban exceptions

Tuesday marked the anniversary of Tennessee’s so-called “trigger ban,” the extreme anti-abortion legislation that went into effect in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion through 1972’s Roe v. Wade. 

Tennessee law makes abortion a felony except in circumstances where the life of the mother is in danger or she faces serious bodily injury. That means no exceptions for rape, incest or the mental health of the mother and none for life-limiting fetal diagnosis. In other words, if your baby is sure to die, you are still barred from abortion.

Tennessee’s law is one of the most draconian in the country. Four years later, it seems reasonable to ask how Tennesseans are feeling about it.

In January of this year, the Tennessee Freedom Circle administered the first statewide poll measuring Tennesseans’ views on reproductive health policy since the end of Roe. 

We polled 600 likely 2026 general election voters, a population that closely mirrors the 2024 presidential vote in Tennessee, with 64% of respondents identifying as Republican and 73% identifying with the Make America Great Again movement. The most surprising revelation from that poll was how little the majority of Tennesseans actually know about abortion law in our state. 

Many of our respondents were astonished to learn that our abortion law has so few exceptions. Seventy two percent of them told us that they support exceptions for rape and incest and 71% support an exception when the fetus cannot live outside the womb. When we initially asked them how they felt about Tennessee’s abortion law, 49% said they supported it. Once they learned how restrictive it was, 55% opposed it. These statistics tell us that Tennesseans want common sense, not extremist, reproductive health policies. 

Tennesseans also understand that reproductive freedom is about more than abortion. Our respondents overwhelmingly support keeping in vitro fertilization, IVF, legal: 73% of voters, including majorities of Republicans and voters who identify as pro-life, believe IVF should remain legal. Two-thirds of voters oppose new restrictions on genetic testing that could threaten access to IVF. 

Four years after Tennessee enacted one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, these polling results demonstrated that we don’t have to understand reproductive health care policy as a purely partisan issue. And our lawmakers are starting to understand that. 

Last year, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Fertility and Contraception Protection Act that protects contraception and IVF, becoming the first state in the South to do so. This year, our legislators expanded access to contraception by passing legislation allowing patients covered by applicable health plans to obtain a 12-month supply of prescription contraception at one time. 

At the same time, Tennessee Freedom Circle and its partners worked to successfully oppose extreme proposals, including HB 1528, which would have expanded Tennessee’s wrongful death statute by redefining “person” to include an unborn child beginning at fertilization. Why were we successful? We think it’s because everyone — Democrats and Republicans — are realizing that Tennesseans want a more compassionate, medically grounded approach to reproductive healthcare than is represented by the extremist law triggered by the Dobbs decision. We may have learned a lot in four years.