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Kentucky and Idaho measures severely restricting abortions are halted

Kentucky and Idaho measures severely restricting abortions are halted

Measures’ constitutionality brought into question amid flurry of abortion restrictions passed in US states

  • Opinion: these are the final days of US reproductive freedom

Two measures that severely restrict abortions were halted on Friday, one by Kentucky’s governor and a second by Idaho’s supreme court.

In Kentucky, Democratic governor Andy Beshear vetoed a Republican-priority bill on Friday that would ban abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy and regulate the dispensing of abortion pills.

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The governor raised doubts about the constitutionality of the proposed legislation and criticized it for not including exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Kentucky law currently bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Idaho’s supreme court delivered a late decision Friday afternoon halting a law – modeled after a similar abortion ban in Texas – that would allow family members of an aborted fetus to sue doctors who perform a procedure after six weeks of pregnancy for a minimum of $20,000.

Chief justice Richard Bevan said in court documents that the court stayed the law, which was scheduled to go into effect on 22 April, to give state attorneys more time to address a legal challenge from Planned Parenthood. State attorneys have until 28 April to address the lawsuit.

In a statement, Rebecca Gibron, interim chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky, said: “Patients across Idaho can breathe a sigh of relief tonight”. Gibron said abortions can continue in Idaho’s three Planned Parenthood locations.

While Idaho’s governor Brad Little signed the ban into law 23 March, he said he had reservations about the civilian enforcement measures of the ban, saying that it could prove itself to be “unconstitutional and unwise”. If deemed constitutional, Little said that states “hostile” to the first and second amendments could use similar methods against religious freedom and gun rights.

The block on Idaho’s law could be temporary. If the court allows it to pass, it would be just the latest of a slate of Republican-led states that have passed abortion restrictions over the last three years. Abortion bans have been seen across several states, including Arkansas, Arizona, Montana, Texas and Alabama. Most recently, Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill this week that makes performing an abortion a felony punishable by 10 years in prison and with a $100,000 fine.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers in Kentucky will have a chance to override the governor’s veto when they reconvene next week for the final two days of this year’s 60-day legislative session. The abortion measure won overwhelming support in the Republica-dominated legislature.

Kentucky’s proposed 15-week ban is modeled after a Mississippi law under review by the US supreme court in a case that could dramatically limit abortion rights. By taking the pre-emptive action, the bill’s supporters say that Kentucky’s stricter ban would be in place if the Mississippi law is upheld.

Republicans have already sharply criticized Beshear’s veto on the legislature’s abortion ban, with state GOP spokesperson Sean Southard saying on Friday that the governor’s veto was “the latest action in his ideological war on the conservative values held by Kentuckians”. The bill will probably surface as an issue again next year when Beshear runs for a second term in Republican-trending Kentucky.

Beshear condemned the bill for failing to exclude pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

“Rape and incest are violent crimes,” the governor said in his veto message on Friday. “Victims of these crimes should have options, not be further scarred through a process that exposes them to more harm from their rapists or that treats them like offenders themselves.”

The governor said the bill would make it harder for girls under 18 to end a pregnancy without notifying both parents. As an example, he said that a girl impregnated by her father would have to notify him of her intent to get an abortion.

Beshear, a former state attorney general, also said the bill was “likely unconstitutional”, noting that the US supreme court struck down similar laws elsewhere. He pointed to provisions in the Kentucky bill requiring doctors performing nonsurgical procedures to maintain hospital admitting privileges in “geographical proximity” to where the procedures are performed.

“The supreme court has ruled such requirements unconstitutional as it makes it impossible for women, including a child who is a victim of rape or incest, to obtain a procedure in certain areas of the state,” the governor said.

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Kentucky
  • US politics
  • Democrats
  • Republicans
  • US healthcare
  • US domestic policy
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com


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