Abortion remains legal in Kentucky despite the state legislature’s attempt to enact a trigger law and the fact that its attorney general, Daniel Cameron, appealed a court ruling that barred it from taking effect.
Cameron—the same attorney general who allowed Breonna Taylor’s killers to walk free—is holding an L from the Kentucky Supreme Court, which denied his appeal without giving a reason, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
That means that abortion, at least for the time being, is still legal in Kentucky, though the state’s conservative legislature will definitely make another pass as banning the procedure.
Last week, Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry granted a temporary injunction barring the state’s trigger law from going into effect after the state’s only two abortion clinics sued, claiming that the law violated Kentucky’s state constitution on the grounds that it guarantees a right to privacy. Cameron, who is staunchly pro-life—except for Breonna Taylor’s—then filed his failed appeal.
Cameron’s zeal to end abortion in his state likely has as much to do with his political aspirations as his principles, to the extent that those exist. He announced earlier this year that he’s running to unseat Andy Bashear, Kentucky’s Democrat incumbent governor.
Meanwhile, if the legal fight to keep abortion legal for women in Kentucky ends up successful, expect similar strategies across the country. Already pro-choice advocates in at least four other states—Florida, Texas, Utah and Louisiana—have filed legal challenges to abortion bans at the state court level.