Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron filed a lawsuit against Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration over the implementation of House Bill 3, the omnibus abortion bill that passed in the 2022 General Assembly session.
“Gov. Beshear has a duty to faithfully execute the law, but he has failed to implement important provisions of House Bill 3,” Cameron said. “His administration is required to create forms and set forth regulations that protect women’s health and unborn babies, including regulating abortion-inducing drugs. Failure to act is not an option, and our lawsuit asks the court to direct the governor and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to follow the law.”
The suit alleges that Beshear and the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services must implement the law, which was given a temporary injunction by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings for the Western District of Kentucky. The injunction blocked most of the law. On May 19, Jennings extended an injunction that blocked key provisions of the bill, including the 15-week ban on abortion and at-home medication for abortion received through the mail.
“Kentuckians can breathe a sigh of relief that these extreme restrictions will remain blocked and abortion will remain accessible for now,” said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky, last month. “For nearly a week, we were blocked from providing this critical and time-sensitive health care. We can’t go back. Planned Parenthood will work day by day to safeguard the ability of our patients to access essential health care, no matter what.”
Planned Parenthood and ACLU filed lawsuits, including a provision for a temporary injunction to resume abortion services in the state, as soon as the law passed the legislature. Beshear vetoed the bill. Amongst chants from protestors that could be heard in the Senate and House chambers, the legislature overrode the governor’s veto, making the bill law.
“The Commonwealth is irreparably injured when it cannot enforce ‘statutes enacted by representatives of its people,’” Cameron writes in the lawsuit. “Furthermore, the inability to enforce HB 3 irretrievably harms the women and unborn children it was enacted to protect.”
Susan Dunlap, the executive director for CHFS, said the lawsuit is a “baseless and political stunt.”
“The cabinet has not refused to comply with any requirements and has told the attorney general that it will work through the federal court that has jurisdiction over this matter and which has issued an injunction in this case,” Dunlap said. “In response, the attorney general sent threatening letters to the cabinet asking us to ignore the court’s orders and today defied the federal court by trying to go around it.”
The lawsuit in Kentucky comes amid national abortion news when a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion showed that Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned this summer. If it is overturned, Kentucky’s fetal heartbeat bill that passed in 2019 would be automatically triggered. This will end abortion in Kentucky if the bill is upheld.