Pregnant Kentucky woman sues state over near-total abortion ban

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A pregnant Kentucky woman who wants an abortion but is unable to legally get one is suing the state in an effort to reverse its near-total ban on abortions.

The woman, about seven weeks pregnant, is seeking to overturn a pair of state laws that took effect soon after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022: a six-week ban on abortion, and a trigger law, so named because it immediately banned abortion in nearly all cases once federal abortion protections were overturned.

Together, the two laws prohibit any pregnancy from being terminated if there is still detectable fetal cardiac activity, except in cases where the life of the pregnant person is at immediate risk. Neither law includes exceptions for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities incompatible with life. Republicans and Democrats, alike, have filed bills to add these exceptions in the two legislative sessions since both bans took effect. But GOP-controlled leadership declined to assign those bills committee hearings.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Jefferson County, gives the woman a pseudonym of Mary Poe.

“I have decided that ending my pregnancy is the best decision for me and for my family,” Poe said in a statement. “I feel overwhelmed and frustrated that I cannot access abortion care here in my own state, and I have started the difficult process of arranging to get care in another state where it’s legal.”

Poe added: “This involves trying to take time off work and securing child care, all of which place an enormous burden on me. This is my personal decision, a decision I believe should be mine alone, not one made by anyone else. I am bringing this case to ensure that other Kentuckians will not have to go through what I am going through, and instead will be able to get the health care they need in our community.”

By denying Poe an abortion, the “government has denied her access to the care she needs,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which is representing Poe, said in a statement.

In the 42-page filing, Poe argues that Kentucky’s bans violate her constitutional right to self-determination and privacy. She’s also requesting the court certify a class of all pregnant Kentuckians who seek access to abortion, “but cannot obtain that care because of the abortion bans.”

Poe’s case is the third time Kentucky’s abortion bans have been challenged in court. Abortion providers sued the state in 2022, arguing both laws were unconstitutional because they violated patient’s privacy and right to self-determination.

The Kentucky Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision in February 2023, ruled the providers lacked appropriate constitutional standing to challenge the full scope of those laws on behalf of their patients and denied providers’ request for injunctive relief. That left the responsibility of challenging state abortion laws to individuals who are actively pregnant and in need of an abortion — a reality that makes Kentucky’s ban uniquely difficult to challenge in court, legal experts have told the Herald-Leader.

Last December, a Kentuckian eight weeks pregnant, anonymously referred to as Jane Doe, became the first pregnant person to sue over the bans. But less than a month later, she had a miscarriage and asked a judge to dismiss her case.

Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said abortion bans have “wreaked havoc on peoples’ lives.”

While some women are able to “scrape together the resources may be able to travel out of state to get care, others will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term against their will, often at great cost to their health or lives,” Amiri added. “We hope that the court will finally strike down for good Kentucky’s blatantly unconstitutional abortion bans.”

David Walls, executive director of the Family Foundation, a conservative Christian lobbying group, decried the new legal challenge.

“This new legal attack on pre-born Kentuckians and their mothers is as meritless as the previous failed challenges,” he said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon. “The ACLU’s suggestion that the Kentucky Constitution somehow secretly contains a hidden right to terminate the life and stop the beating heart of an unborn human being ... is completely absurd.”

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