After much deliberation last week in the House, 86 amendments were ultimately filed on Senate Bill 1 – the legislation prohibiting abortions in most instances. Of those amendments, four were of concern to the Indiana Chamber due to their direct business impacts and warranted notification of our opposition to House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Matt Lehman (R-Berne).
Amendment 19, offered by Rep. J.D. Prescott (R-Union City), appeared to imply that employers would be impacted if they reimbursed employees for the costs associated with an out-of-state abortion. The wording was unclear enough that we sought legal opinion from some of our members, who all confirmed it was indeed problematic. Special thanks go to our attorney partners at Ice Miller LLP, Ogletree Deakins and Bose McKinney & Evans for the timely consultation.
In addition, there were two mandates on health insurance for hormonal contraceptives – amendment 35, offered by Rep. Ann Vermillion (R-Marion), and amendment 68, offered by Rep. Rita Fleming (D-Jeffersonville). The Indiana Chamber opposes any mandates on health plans that drive up the costs to small employers.
Thanks in part to the Chamber’s work with Rep. Lehman, none of these three amendments were even offered on the House floor.
The fourth troublesome proposal was amendment 54, offered by Rep. Robin Shackleford (D-Indianapolis); it failed to pass. This amendment was an expansion of pregnancy accommodations greater than those allowed by HEA 1309, which the Indiana General Assembly passed in 2021.
On Friday, the House passed SB 1 with a 62-38 vote. Then, later in the evening, after 3.5 hours of debate, the Senate passed SB 1 28-19 on a concurrence vote, thus accepting the changes made to the legislation in the House. Governor Holcomb then signed the bill into law.
Mike Ripley is vice president of health care policy & employment law for the Indiana Chamber. He has been with the organization since 2008 and previously was a longtime state legislator in northeast Indiana.
