Three anti-abortion bills advance in General Assembly

Rep. Joseph Fisher

The Kentucky House of Representatives passed two anti-abortion bills March 10, one to amend the state constitution to say that it grants no right to abortion, and another to expand the power of the Kentucky attorney general to regulate abortion facilities.

House Bill 67, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, would have the constitution say, "To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion."

The bill went to the Senate on a vote of 71-21. If approved there and by voters this fall, it would be effective only if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. He said it would "end the slaughter of unborn children in Kentucky," Joe Sonka reports for the Louisville Courier Journal.

Several Democratic legislators spoke against the bill, reading the testimony of opponents who were cut off by the committee chairman after only seven minutes when the bill was in committee.

Rep. Patti Minter, D-Bowling Green, called Fischer’s bill “blatantly unconstitutional” and a “grave violation of individual liberty.” She noted that the bill has no exceptions for “victims of rape, for those who have survived incest, [or] to save the life of the mother.” To pass such an amendment, she said, is “exceptionally cruel." Fisher said the legislature could provide exceptions by law.

House Bill 451, sponsored by Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, would expand the power of the attorney general to regulate abortion facilities, including bringing injunction relief as well as civil or criminal penalties for violations. This bill went to the Senate on a 70-23 vote.

Current law only allows the attorney general this power if action is requested by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which licenses and inspects health facilities. But for the first time ever, the executive branch is run by Democrats and the attorney general is a Republican: Daniel Cameron, who opposes abortion rights.

Rep. Stan Lee

Lee said his bill “simply allows the attorney general to step in and act as a special prosecutor as his office does all over the state currently in any number of cases.”

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, D-Louisville, called the bill a “power grab,” saying Kentucky women “do not need a special prosecutor to come at them for myriad reasons that will, in the end, be very political ones . . . not connected to our health,” Alex Acquisto reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Lee countered that a special prosecutor was needed to protect the “unborn babies that are killed,” Sonka reports.

The next day, a Senate bill, called the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act," to require health care providers to do everything possible to save the life of a baby who is born alive, was approved by the House Judiciary Committee. It is posted for passage in the full House.

Senate Bill 9, sponsored by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, would require health-care providers to give "medically appropriate and reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining medical care and treatment" to any infant born alive, including after a failed abortion, and would make not doing so a felony. The bill was amended to remove any reference to research, so it would not inhibit ongoing research.

Sen. Whitney Westerfield

Westerfield said the bill is not specifically tailored to abortion, but Jackie McGranahan of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky said it "does not accurately reflect how abortion works and it's based on false claims. . . . This bill perpetuates stereotypes about abortion, the women who receive abortions and the doctors who care for them."

Rep. Maria Sorolis, D-Louisville, said she was "really troubled" by the bill. "We have laws in this state that prevent killing anything that breathes on its own, they call it murder," she said. "So we don't need this bill; it's already on the books, because the minute a pregnancy ends and a human being is born, they have all the full protections of this state."

Further, she said the bill doesn't account for palliative care and would strip away the rights of parents to make difficult palliative decisions when they are told that their infant will not live or will not have quality of life. "I am appalled that you would try to do this to an infant," she said.

Asked why he didn't think our current laws were sufficient, Westerfield said this bill wasn't about whether such a situation has ever happened, but about its possibility. He said a constituent told him they had to argue with their physician to have their premature child cared for.

Sorolis asked what the parameters of the bill were, noting that the bill doesn't define care.

"This bill doesn't just provide food, water, the things that are basic human needs. This provides that the parents totally lose their right to make a decision about what is best for their child," she said. "And how do we extrapolate that when we have parents, for example, who refuse medical care based on religious principles? How do we decide for them that the state gets to usurp your religious convictions and require that you do these extreme measures?"

Westerfield said he didn't think his bill strips parents of their rights, "except to the extent that they can't have their child killed." He said the bill does not change the standard of care, but only requires that care be provided. It cleared the committee 16-4, with two members passing.