Those who want to control the wombs of women are moving closer to their nefarious goals as the Kentucky legislature passed two bills this week, which for all intents and purposes ban abortion unless a court intervenes, according to the ACLU.
Kentucky is one of 22 states in the U.S. which has a “Republican trifecta,” meaning all three branches of government are ruled by the GOP, something that usually doesn’t bode well for reproductive rights.
One bill, passed on Thursday night, prohibits abortion after six weeks in pregnancy before most women even know that they are pregnant. The other, passed late Wednesday night, bans abortion if a woman is seeking it because of a fetal diagnosis. The ACLU is challenging both laws, asking a judge to block them immediately to ensure that the only abortion provider in Kentucky, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, does not have to turn patients away.
This is not a hard legal case. Banning abortion has been unconstitutional under more than 40 years of Supreme Court precedent, starting with Roe v. Wade. The politicians who passed these laws know that, but they are hoping that these laws will be the means the Supreme Court will use to reconsider Roe. They are emboldened by changes on the Supreme Court, where there may be enough votes to overrule or weaken the constitutional right to abortion.
According to the ACLU, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has already closed two clinics that provide the service in Kentucky, leaving a third, EMW, in Louisville, as the last abortion facility in the entire state.
And although abortion has been legal in the United States since 1973’s Roe decision, the onslaught against access to abortion has remained relentless, on both the Federal and state level, including the Trump administration’s quest to defund Planned Parenthood, playing right into the hands of his Evangelical Christian base led by his rabid anti-abortion lapdog VP, Mike Pence.
The ACLU notes that mostly Republican anti-abortion politicians around the country have been “chipping away,” at a woman’s right to choose, including Mississippi, which is preparing to pass a six-week abortion ban, along with death knells for abortion access ringing in several other states, including Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas and Florida.
As with most decisions by this administration, the courts are our only hope. Unfortunately, after another decade or so, those very same benches will be packed with Trump appointees.
The struggle continues.