NASHVILLE, Tennessee (LifeSiteNews) – Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation to protect the right of medical personnel to refuse participation in abortion or any other practice violating their moral convictions.

Signed into law April 24, the Medical Ethics Defense Act states that a “healthcare provider must not be required to participate in or pay for a healthcare procedure, treatment, or service that violates the conscience of the healthcare provider.”

It also shields doctors, nurses, and others who provide “information relating to an act or omission the healthcare provider reasonably believes to be a violation of this part to the healthcare provider’s employer, the attorney general and reporter, a state agency charged with protecting healthcare rights of conscience, the United States department of health and human services’ office of civil rights, or another federal agency charged with protecting healthcare rights of conscience”; as well as those who “testify, assist, or participate, in a proceeding concerning such violation.”

“Tennessee’s MED Act ensures that healthcare professionals are not forced to participate in procedures that violate their ethical, moral, or religious beliefs,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Greg Chafuen said in praise of the news. “ADF commends Sen. Pro Tempore Ferrell Haile, Rep. Bryan Terry, and the Tennessee Legislature for their fortitude, and we thank Gov. Lee for standing with healthcare professionals and the patients they serve by enacting the MED Act. We also thank Tennessee Right to Life for its monumental work on this effort. Now, Tennessee healthcare heroes are free to care for all patients in a compassionate, ethical manner.”

Abortion is already illegal throughout pregnancy in Tennessee, albeit with exceptions for when deemed “necessary” to avoid the mother’s death or “serious risk” of permanent injury to a “major bodily function.”

Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.