Abortion in Kentucky
This changed when the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year.
[7] In 1974, Kentucky adopted a law preventing public hospitals from performing abortion procedures except to protect the life of the mother.
The office of state Attorney General David L. Armstrong issued a non-binding opinion that the law was unconstitutional.
In 1983, the court ruled that the seven-month-old fetus killed by the man during an attack on his wife could not be defined as a person under the Model Penal Code.
Despite an opinion issued by then-Attorney General Steve Beshear holding that the law was not constitutional, it was enacted by the legislature.
Burch keeps anti-abortion bills off the House floor, shielding the Democratic majority from votes that many prefer to avoid.
[16] Two bills which seek to prohibit abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected were filed in the Kentucky General Assembly in 2019.
[28] The next day the state's chapter of the ACLU filed a petition for a temporary restraining order preventing implementation of the ban.
In EMW Women's Surgical Center v. Meier, the 6-week ban was stayed by the US District Judge David Hale.
[30] When asked about the bill, Goforth, who announced his candidacy for Governor of Kentucky on January 8, 2019, the same day the bill was introduced, said he would be pleased if Kentucky or one of the other states considering similar measures enacted such a law and, in the event of the court challenge, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn Roe v.
[27] On April 14, 2022, House Bill 3[1] was passed by the predominately Republican legislature, overturning a veto by Democratic Governor Andy Beshear, and made effective immediately under an emergency clause.
[33][34] On June 24, 2022, the 2019 trigger law took effect after the ruling for Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was delivered, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
It made all abortions illegal except when medically mandatory to prevent the patient from dying or getting a "life-sustaining organ" permanently impaired.
[37] The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
[7] EMW Women's Surgical Center took the state of Kentucky to court in 1998 over the need to have a license to run an abortion clinic.
[16] Similarly, a federal court temporary blocked House Bill 3 a week after it was passed following suits from pro-abortion advocates.
[42] In December 2023, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit challenging the state's near total abortion ban on behalf of a Kentucky woman.
North Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia were the only six states as of July 21, 2017, not to have a Planned Parenthood clinic that offered abortion services.
Kentucky's Republican Governor, Matt Bevin, worked to try to close EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville down.
[56] According to a 2014 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) study, 60% of white women in the state believed that abortion be illegal in all or most cases.
[58] Since 2005, an annual event called Cross the Bridge For Life has occurred in support of the pro-life movement in Newport, Kentucky.
The event entails crossing the Purple People Bridge between Newport, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, by thousands of attendees.
[64] Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, abortion rights protests were held in Louisville,[65] Lexington,[66] Frankfort,[67] Bowling Green[68] and Covington.
