Indiana Reproductive Health and Access Coalition Opposes SB 236
Indianapolis, IN —The Indiana Reproductive Health and Access Coalition (IRHAC) strongly opposes SB 236, a dangerous escalation of Indiana’s already extreme abortion ban. SB 236 passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week despite hours of testimony reflecting widespread concern about the bill’s implementation and its impact on privacy, health care clinicians, and access to essential reproductive health care. Ignoring continued concerns, the full Senate voted to advance the bill again, 35-10, sending it to the House.
Even with cosmetic amendments, SB 236 remains a sweeping pregnancy policing scheme that further erodes access to reproductive health care in Indiana. Hoosiers should not be misled by these surface-level revisions. This bill is still profoundly harmful, and here’s why:
Creates a Texas-style “bounty hunter” legal environment that places a hefty price on Hoosiers’s private health care decisions. It allows private individuals to sue providers, pharmacists, manufacturers, or even friends and family members they believe are involved in medication abortion care, with the promise of financial rewards reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars. This structure invites surveillance, harassment, and unwanted legal exposure by strangers, unsupportive family members, and abusive partners.
Allows the Indiana Attorney General to sue on behalf of the fetus, expanding the legal definition of personhood. It empowers the Indiana Inspector General, a non-health care appointee of Governor Braun, to review individual abortion complication reports, granting access to deeply personal medical information with the goal to identify violations of the Indiana abortion ban for prosecution.This will have a chilling effect for those who provide care to pregnant people and will increase the risks of patient harm and death. Court cases brought under SB 236 would rely on sensitive medical records, pregnancy timelines, digital history, and private communications—dragging pregnant people and their physicians into court without their consent.
“This is pregnancy policing at its most extreme,” said Haley Bougher, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates “SB 236 replaces trust in medical care with fear, surveillance, and punishment. It will deter people from seeking care and force health care clinicians to practice under constant threat.”
By advancing illegitimate fetal personhood concepts, inserting contradicting abortion definitions, and intensifying civil liability tied to handling, shipping, and distributing medication abortion, SB 236 also creates a dangerous slippery slope that could threaten basic pregnancy care like contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, and medical privacy in the future.
“This is a thinly veiled attempt to scare people away from accessing health care by deputizing and financially incentivizing private citizens to police their own communities. We see right through it. Hoosiers deserve better, and this bill will cause real harm to pregnant people and the people who care for them,” Danielle Drake, ACLU of Indiana. “We urge Indiana lawmakers to reject this bill and protect the dignity, safety, and health of Hoosiers.”
“Statewide polling has shown time and time again that an overwhelming number of Hoosiers do not want government meddling in their private health care decisions. This bill takes existing laws restricting reproductive freedom in this state and puts them on steroids,” Liane Hulka, Indiana Reproductive Freedom PAC.
The Indiana Reproductive Health and Access Coalition will continue organizing, educating, and advocating against policies that criminalize pregnancy, undermine medical privacy, and restrict access to comprehensive reproductive health care.
About the Indiana Reproductive Health and Access Coalition (IRHAC): IRHAC is a statewide coalition of community organizers, advocates, health care providers, legal experts, and storytellers united to defend reproductive freedom and promote equitable access to health care for all Hoosiers.
Learn more at indianarepro.org
Liane Hulka, Executive Director, Indiana Reproductive Freedom PAC
Haylee Sanford, Director of Engagement, Coburn Place
Linda Hanson, President, League of Women Voters of Indiana
Haley Bougher, Indiana State Director, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates
Cara Berg Raunick, co-chair, Hoosier Jews for Choice
Angela Carr Klitzsch, CEO, Women4Change Indiana Action Fund
Danielle Drake, ACLU of Indiana
Media Contact
Nicole Erwin, Strategic Communications Manager, nicole.erwin@ppallianceadvocates.org
