A federal judge in Kentucky temporarily blocked an omnibus abortion law from going into effect, providing a reprieve for the state’s last two abortion clinics.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Jennings, appointed by President Donald Trump, issued a temporary restraining order on the sweeping abortion law on Thursday, blocking it from going into effect and clearing the way for the Planned Parenthood clinic and EMW Women’s Surgical Center to resume services.
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The omnibus abortion bill, which cleared the state legislature for a second time on April 13 when lawmakers overrode a veto issued by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, bans the distribution of abortion pills by mail and imposes new restrictions for girls under 18 seeking abortions. It also mandates the creation of a new certification and monitoring system that will track details of all abortions administered in the state and the providers who perform them.
Such a monitoring system does not yet exist, meaning abortion providers cannot come into compliance with the law. Jennings cited that as a reason for her move to block the law from taking effect.
“The Court does not consider at this stage the constitutionality of the substance of the requirements in HB 3, but merely the enforceability of the provisions based on the impossibility of compliance,” Jennings wrote.
An emergency provision included in the law meant that it went into effect immediately after the vote last week, sending the state’s remaining abortion providers scrambling.
The Planned Parenthood and EMW clinics filed for an injunction against the law shortly after the successful override of Beshear’s veto. Because the law did not allocate funding to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to establish and maintain the certification and monitoring system, they argued that performing abortions will be prohibited altogether in the state.
“It is impossible to comply with its vast provisions, resulting in an immediate ban on abortion state-wide in the absence of this Court’s intervention,” said the lawsuit filed on behalf of Planned Parenthood.
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The bill also included a 15-week ban on abortion, pending a decision from the Supreme Court in June on whether to weaken the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Kentucky is just one of several Republican states that have advanced anti-abortion legislation with the expectation that the majority-conservative Supreme Court will rule in favor of a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi, which is the basis of the pending suit Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
