The Republican-led Kentucky General Assembly voted handily Wednesday to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill that opponents say will effectively end abortion access in the commonwealth.
Among the restrictions imposed by House Bill 3, a sweeping anti-abortion omnibus bill from Rep. Nancy Tate, R-Brandenburg, it bans the distribution of abortion pills by mail, raises standards for minors seeking an abortion, and mandates the creation of a new and expansive certification and monitoring system to track details of all abortions administered in the state and the physicians who provide them.
Bill opponents say the system is impossible to implement without additional funding, and as a result, will effectively revoke access to the medical procedure in the state.
Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates of Kentucky and Indiana’s Nicole Erwin said Wednesday morning the bill “does not make abortion illegal, but because of the laundry list of restrictions . . . abortion providers will not be able to comply.”
As the House voted 76-21 to override the governor’s vetoes, chants from protesters repeating, “Bans off our bodies” echoed throughout the House chambers.
Wednesday evening, as protesters continued chanting, the Senate voted 31-6 to override the veto, solidifying final passage of the bill. Its emergency clause means it takes effect immediately.
Rep. Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, who has previously shared that she was raped as a 14-year-old, pleaded with Republicans to not overturn Beshear’s veto.
“I can hear people outside chanting, ‘Bans off our bodies’ right now. This issue is so important that people showed up today. That should tell you something,” Roberts said. “I urge you to consider the ramifications of this bill. I urge you to allow this veto. Think of me as a 14-year-old rape victim.”
Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, also begged her colleagues to re-think their decision to overturn Beshear’s veto.
“It takes an amazing amount of audacity to assume you know that you can make this decision for every woman and female child in this state,” she said. “I beg my colleagues to think about what they are doing.”
But Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, retorted that the legalization of abortion was “a stain on our country” and “our greatest sin.”
“If a mother can kill her own child,” Meredith asked before casting a vote to overturn the veto, “what prevents us from killing ourselves and one another?”
Following the override, representatives from Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky said they intend to sue the Attorney General and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky Thursday morning, asking the court to block the state offices from enforcing the provisions of the law.
The new law, both organizations argue, creates “unnecessary abortion requirements while simultaneously making those requirements impossible to comply with,” they wrote in a statement. “Because the law is impossible to comply with, it amounts to a de fact abortion ban, thus violating patients’ federal right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.”
Details of the bill
Kentucky has enacted a number of measures in recent years to limit abortion access and make the procedure illegal, including passing a “trigger law” in 2019 that immediately bans in-state abortions of Roe is overturned.
House Bill 3, named the “Humanity in Healthcare Act 2022” will:
- Ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy
- Make illegal the mailing of abortion pills
- Tighten the current laws impacting parental consent for minors seeking abortions
- Raise the bar for when a court can grant judicial bypass for a minor seeking an abortion
- Enshrine that no “public agency funds” are used, directly or indirectly, to fund an abortion
- Codify the “dignified care for the terminated remains of pregnancy loss”
- Require the state publish the names and addresses of all physicians who perform abortions to a public database.
- Create a broad certification and monitoring system to track abortions and physicians who perform them.
Physicians can still prescribe abortion pills and administer abortions in person, but Tate’s bill sets up an extensive certification, monitoring and complaint database that the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy and Cabinet for Health and Family Services says it lacks the resources and staff to manage.
The certification process, along with cremation or burial of all aborted fetuses (also required in the bill), will place undue cost burdens on abortion facilities, opponents say.
Blocking abortion access
In his April 8 veto message, Gov. Andy Beshear said he vetoed the bill, in part, because of cost. In addition to hiring new staff, managing the electronic monitoring system will cost the Cabinet for Health and Family Services close to $1 million. Since Tate’s bill included no additional funds to support this new system, it will be effectively impossible to maintain.
That means while the bill is in place, in-person abortions cannot be performed at Kentucky’s lone provider, EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, said Rebecca Gibron, interim president of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky.
“Providers are expected to be registered with a program that does not even exist and fill out forms that have yet to be drafted,” she said Wednesday morning.
EMW will still provide health care services while the law is in effect, but all patients scheduled to receive abortions this week will be instead directed to Planned Parenthood’s Indiana clinics, representatives said.
Other parts of the bill, such as banning abortions after 15 weeks, are not constitutional under Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 court precedent that protects a person’s right to an abortion up to the viability of a fetus outside the womb, which is typically around 23 weeks. Application of the 15-week ban, which is modeled after the Mississippi law currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, is contingent on the high court overturning Roe.
Republicans drafted that portion of the bill anticipating and hoping Roe will be overturned. If that happens, “we will have a pro-life law in place not subject to a good-faith legal challenge,” Wise told lawmakers in early March.
‘No exceptions or exclusions’ for rape and incest
In his veto message, Beshear said the 15-week ban was unconstitutional, and the bill “contains no exceptions or exclusions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.”
Lead bill sponsor Tate has said rape and incest survivors shouldn’t seek an abortion, which she called “the ultimate punishment of death for the child in the womb that is conceived from a heinous crime.”
Beshear took issue with this, and with the diminished access to judicial bypass under her bill.
If a minor is raped by her father, for instance, and opted to seek the court’s permission for an abortion — a step called judicial bypass — “this violated and hurt child would be judged to her: credibility and demeanor as a witness; ability to accept responsibility; ability to assess both the current and future life-impacting consequences of and alternatives to the procedure; and ability to understand the medical risks of the procedure and to apply that understanding to her decision,” Beshear wrote.
He continued, “victims of these crimes should have options, not be further scarred through a process that exposes them to more harm from their rapists, or that treats them like offenders, themselves.”
This story may be updated.
This story was originally published April 13, 2022 7:55 PM.
