Judge lifts injunction against law banning abortion in Ky. after 15 weeks; only clinic doing later abortions had suspended them
“A Kentucky law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy may now be enforced while a legal challenge continues to a state law banning all abortions in the state,” Deborah Yetter of The Courier Journal reports. “For now, abortions remain legal in Kentucky for patients with pregnancies under 15 weeks, under a different court ruling.”
The 15-week rule is part of a broad anti-abortion bill the Kentucky General Assembly passed this year. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings had blocked that part of the bill, but she said in an order Thursday there was no reason to continue that because the U.S. Supreme Court has returned abortion policy to the states with its June 24 overturn of its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Other parts of the 2022 law, passed in House Bill 3, “including heavy regulation of medication to induce abortions, new restrictions for girls under 18 seeking abortions and extensive new reporting requirements for physicians who provide abortions services,” remain blocked by the injunction, Yetter notes.
HB 3 also included a provision, triggered by the June 24 decision, to ban abortions in Kentucky except in cases where the woman faces the possibility of death or a disabling injury. That has been blocked by an injunction from Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry, in a lawsuit by the abortion clinics that cites privacy rights created by the Kentucky Constitution.