Friday, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law a bill that, for the most part, outlaws abortion in that state. Governor Holcomb signed the bill minutes after the state legislature passed the law in a special session called for precisely that purpose. The law bans abortion except for cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality, or when the pregnant woman faces the risk of death or certain severe health risks. Indiana law currently restricts abortion after 22 weeks and was the subject of a nationwide furor when Joe Biden favorably compared the Indiana law to that in Ohio, see Joe Biden Repeats Story of a 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Denied Abortion but Is This Story Even Real?

The bill doesn’t, as far as I can tell, require a police report to be filed to support a claim of rape or incest; this, if I am reading it correctly, is a colossal error. However, it does define “severe health risks” to exclude:

The term does not include psychological or emotional conditions. A medical condition may not be determined to exist based on a claim or diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that she intends to result in her death or in physical harm.

This removes the “psychological health” excuse created in Doe vs. Bolton that opened the gate to abortion on demand.

As far as I can tell, there are seven abortuaries in Indiana and as many as fifteen other sites that serve as feeders for those abortion mills.

This map represents the state of play in the fight for life.

Credit: Author

This fight is uncovering the number of weaklings and grifters who have used the pro-life cause as a political ornament. West Virginia’s legislature is slow-walking an abortion ban. We’re also seeing judges in nearly every state with an abortion ban taking it upon themselves to invent a right to abortion in the state constitution. In time, though, this will change, and without a federal constitutional right to abortion, those arguing for it will have to defend it on its own merits. That is a fight we can win.