Tennessee must pay legal fees for abortion providers

A 2020 executive order by Gov. Bill Lee failed to pass legal muster and costs taxpayers $249,000


The state of Tennessee has agreed to pay attorneys for abortion providers $249,000 to cover legal fees stemming from their challenge to an executive order by Gov. Bill Lee during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic that temporarily banned most abortions.

The settlement — an agreed-upon sum between the office of Attorney General Herbert Slatery, III and five Tennessee abortion providers — covers legal costs associated with a lawsuit against one of Lee’s earliest pandemic-related emergency orders, after a federal court and an appellate court ruled his order was unlikely to pass constitutional muster.

Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said in a statement Wednesday that the ultimate outcome of the governor’s actions amounted to “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“We are pleased that the court has ruled in our favor and covered court costs, but it never should have come to this,” Coffield said. “Abortion is essential healthcare. Using COVID-19 as a pretext to prohibit abortion access served no public health benefit and was nothing more than a blatantly political move by the governor and a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Read more: https://tennesseelookout.com/2021/11/18/tennessee-to-pay-lawyers-for-abortion-providers-after-lee-executive-order-fails-to-pass-legal-muster/