The Kentucky law, which was the worst ever anti-choice law promulgated YET, has been stopped by the Kentucky Courts.

Here is the latest from the Hill.

Please join us in fighting against State legislation that takes away our RIGHTS to choose. Send me an email at [email protected].

Salli

Federal judge halts Kentucky’s restrictive new abortion law

by John Kruzel - 04/21/22 4:14 PM ET

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FILE – Abortion-rights supporters chant their objections at the Kentucky Capitol on Wednesday, April 13, 2022, in Frankfort, Ky., as Kentucky lawmakers debate overriding the governor’s veto of an abortion measure. Frustration is building among abortion-rights groups in Kentucky, where a restrictive new law has thrown the state’s only two remaining clinics into limbo. For women seeking abortions, it means traveling elsewhere or waiting for a judge to rule on requests to block the law. AP Photo/Bruce Schreiner, File)

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a restrictive new abortion law in Kentucky, handing a win to abortion providers challenging the measure.

In a 21-page ruling, Louisville-based U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, a Trump appointee, sided with Planned Parenthood’s request to block Kentucky officials from enforcing the sweeping new law, which providers say essentially eliminates all abortion services in the state.

It took effect after the state’s GOP-held legislature overrode a veto from the Democratic governor.

The judge scheduled her temporary order to expire in two weeks, absent new developments in the litigation, and said she expects to hold a hearing during that timeframe.

The Kentucky law, known as H.B. 3, created dozens of new requirements for abortion providers, including regulations on medical abortion, additional patient reporting requirements, and provisions dealing with the cremation or interment of fetal remains. 

Planned Parenthood, in a legal challenge filed last week, argued that the law amounted to “a de facto ban on all forms of legal abortion” by imposing strict requirements that make it too challenging to perform the procedure.

What’s more, they argued, because the law was rushed into taking effect before Kentucky officials put key procedural requirements in place, it would be impossible for abortion providers to comply with the law at the present time.

Jennings appeared receptive to that argument. 

“If Plaintiff cannot comply with HB3 and must cease providing certain medical services until the Cabinet promulgates a means of compliance, then this disruption to medical services will no doubt interrupt the continuity of care for Plaintiff’s patients,” she wrote. “As a result, a temporary restraining order serves public policy.”

The judge also said the law, in its current state, likely violated longstanding Supreme Court precedent recognizing a woman’s right to abortion access prior to fetal viability, around 24 weeks.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D) veto of the bill earlier this month was overridden last week by the Republican-controlled Kentucky House and Senate.

In the leaked draft of the opinion on Dobbs, the Mississippi case, the  Supreme Court indicated its firm decision that the Courts have no business deciding what is characterized as a “moral” decision.

The draft calls both Roe and Casey grievously wrongly decided.

If the draft stands and is issued as drafted, there is no longer a right to privacy under the Constitution and 50 years of protection of women but also of gay marriage and other LBGTQ+ rights will no longer be federally protected.

The fights are now in the States.

Join our Reproductive Justice Action Group and help us fight. Write to us at [email protected].

Here is what Slate published. It accurately sums up the situation.

“If the Supreme Court indeed strikes down Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey this June, as the draft opinion leaked to and published by Politico tonight suggests it will, years of conventional wisdom about the court and its concerns for its own legitimacy will be proved wrong. Every single court watcher who spoke in terms of baby steps, incrementalism, or “chipping away” at one of the most vitally important precedents in modern history will have been wrong. Those who suggested the court would never do something so huge and so polarizing just before the November midterms will have been wrong. And the people who assured us that Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were moderate centrists who cared deeply about the appearance of a nonideological and thoughtful court—well, yeah. They will have been wrong too.

If this draft opinion becomes a precedent for the court, the results will be catastrophic for women, particularly for women in the states that will immediately make abortion unlawful, and in those places, particularly for young women, poor women, and Black and brown women who will not have the time, resources, or ability to travel out of state. The court’s staggering lack of regard for its own legitimacy is exceeded only by its vicious disregard for the real consequences for real pregnant people who are 14 times more likely to die in childbirth than from terminating a pregnancy. The Mississippi law—the law this opinion is upholding—has no exception for rape or incest. We will immediately see a raft of bans that give rights to fathers, including sexual assailants, and punish with evermore cruelty and violence women who miscarry or do harm to their fetuses. The days of pretending that women’s health and safety were of paramount concern are over.”

And here is an excerpt from Ms Magazine recently published:

Szal, R. (2022, May 3). ‘This Is An Emergency’: America Left Reeling in Wake of Likely Roe v. Wade Reversal. MS Magzine. Retrieved May 4, 2022, from https://msmagazine.com/2022/05/03/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-roe-v-wade-dobbs-v-jackson-leak/.