Kentucky’s Republican-controlled Legislature enacted strict abortion limits by overriding Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of an abortion omnibus bill.
The bill, H.B. 3, includes a 15-week ban on abortion, pending a decision from the Supreme Court in June, 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.
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The Kentucky House voted to override Beshear’s veto 76-21, and the Senate voted 31-6 to override it on Wednesday. This comes just over a week after Beshear overturned the Legislature’s approval of the bill.
“If a mother can kill her own child, what prevents us from killing ourselves and one another?” said Republican Sen. Stephen Meredith, who added that abortion is a “stain on our country.”
Democratic Rep. Rachel Roberts, a childhood rape victim, implored her Republican counterparts “to consider the ramifications of this bill.”
“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 allow this veto. Think of me as a 14-year-old rape victim.”
Abortion rights advocates have already announced they will sue to block the law, which does not outright ban abortion. However, its directive to establish an electronic monitoring system without also providing more funding to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to maintain the system means that performing abortions will be prohibited in the state.
“Make no mistake: the Kentucky Legislature’s sole goal with this law is to shut down health centers and completely eliminate abortion access in the state,” said Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest. “We are confident that the courts will stop this cruel and unconstitutional omnibus.”
The law’s provision that bans abortions after 15 weeks is a product of the Legislature feeling “emboldened by a similar 15-week ban pending before the Supreme Court,” as well as other bans passed in the Florida and Oklahoma state Legislatures, according to Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
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The portion of the law concerning the ban will go into effect if the Supreme Court decides in June whether to weaken the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. In the case in question, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court is expected to decide whether to uphold a 2018 Mississippi law effectively banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
