Pregnant Kentucky woman sues over state's two abortion bans

A pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a lawsuit on Friday demanding the right to an abortion, challenging the state’s six-week ban as well as its near total “trigger” ban. 

The lawsuit was filed in state court on behalf of an anonymous woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe, who is about eight weeks pregnant and can’t legally obtain an abortion in her home state. 

Doe is seeking class-action status on behalf of all Kentuckians who are pregnant or may become pregnant and can't legally access abortions because of the state’s laws.  

The lawsuit seeks a court ruling that declares the state’s trigger and six-week bans unconstitutional and blocks them from being enforced any longer. 

Doe and the others in the class are suffering “medical, constitutional, and irreparable harm because they are denied the ability to obtain an abortion,” the lawsuit stated. 

She is joined in the lawsuit by the Kentucky chapter of Planned Parenthood, which operated one of only two outpatient health centers licensed to provide abortions in the state.  

“This is my decision—not the government’s or any other person’s. I am bringing this lawsuit because I firmly believe that everyone should have the ability to make their own decisions about their pregnancies,” plaintiff Doe said in a statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups supporting her effort. 

Kentucky has two overlapping abortion bans, rendering the procedure illegal in almost every circumstance.  

The state’s “trigger” law banning all abortion was passed in 2019 and took effect last year when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It bans all abortions except when they're carried out to save the life of the patient. It does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest or severe fetal anomalies. 

The state also has a six-week “heartbeat” law in effect, which bans abortion after detection of fetal cardiac activity. The six-week ban also contains no exceptions for rape or incest, only for saving the life of the pregnant patient.  

The lawsuit comes less than a year after the state Supreme Court dismissed another challenge to the bans. The court in a narrow ruling in February said the state’s two abortion clinics did not have standing to challenge the ban on behalf of their patients. 

But the ruling didn’t address any larger issues of constitutionality and left open the possibility that patients could challenge the laws directly.  

The lawsuit is only possible because Kentuckians rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure last year that would have amended the state constitution to exclude the right to abortion.