Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron Asks Judge to Stop Lawsuit Against 15-Week Abortion Ban
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron asked a federal judge Tuesday reject Planned Parenthood’s request to block a new pro-life law, saying it would “irretrievably harm the women and unborn children it was enacted to protect.”
The Lexington Herald Leader reports Cameron, a pro-life Republican, responded to a lawsuit from the billion-dollar abortion chain and other abortion groups challenging a series of new state abortion restrictions.
The pro-life law passed the state legislature last week and went into effect immediately. Gov. Andy Beshear, a pro-abortion Democrat, vetoed the bill, but state lawmakers overrode his veto.
The Kentucky legislation is similar to a Mississippi pro-life law that the U.S. Supreme Court is considering this spring. It bans abortions on unborn babies after 15 weeks, with exceptions if the mother’s life is at risk.
The new law also includes a number of other abortion restrictions and regulations, including requiring the burial or cremation of babies killed in abortions and requiring anyone dispensing dangerous abortion drugs to be registered with the state pharmacy board.
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Additionally, the law requires “abortion providers to comply with new forms and regulations that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services must promulgate over the next couple of months,” Cameron said.
Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion groups quickly filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to block the law, but Cameron described their request as “wholly improper” in his response this week.
Cameron told the court that the pro-life legislation enacts “common sense” and “much-needed regulatory reforms on abortion practices in Kentucky,” according to the newspaper.
He also disputed the pro-abortion groups’ complaint that they “cannot comply with administrative forms and regulations that the Cabinet has not yet created,” saying that part of the law does not kick in until after those forms have been created, the report continues.
“The fact that Planned Parenthood is not yet able to complete certain forms is not a blank check for (it) to ignore every other provision of HB 3 that it does not like,” Cameron told the court.
For now, the pro-life law is in effect, and babies’ lives are being saved. The pro-life organization Operation Rescue reports the only two abortion facilities in Kentucky, Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center, are complying with the law.
If the courts allow the law to remain in effect, Kentucky would save hundreds of unborn babies from abortions every year. According to state health department data, nearly 300 unborn babies were aborted after 15 weeks in 2020.
Kentucky is one of 26 states that likely would ban abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to do so, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Many hope the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade this summer and allow states to protect unborn babies by banning abortions again. But others believe the justices may only limit abortions through the Mississippi case, still allowing unborn babies to be aborted in the first trimester but allowing states to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
As a result, Kentucky and other states have introduced 15-week abortion bans in the event that the Supreme Court does not completely overturn Roe. Florida passed a similar law this month.
Currently, states are prohibited from banning abortions before viability, about 22 weeks of pregnancy. Under Roe, states may allow unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth.
Since 1973, nearly 63.5 million unborn babies have died in supposedly “safe, legal” abortions.
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