LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (LifeSiteNews) – Oral arguments began Monday in the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU’s) challenge to Kentucky’s ban on nearly all abortions, representing a woman who has already gone out of state to kill her child in a case the ACLU wants to expand to a broad class-action suit.
Passed in 2019 and taking effect in 2022, Kentucky’s Human Life Protection Act (HLPA) criminalizes all abortions except those deemed “necessary” to save the life of the mother. Since taking effect, it has prevented nearly all abortions in the state.
The ACLU’s challenge to the law calls abortion a “critical component of reproductive healthcare and crucial to the ability of Kentuckians to control their lives.” Their client, identified only by the pseudonym Mary Poe, has already gone out of state to abort her baby but maintains that being forced to travel to do so was a costly and frustrating burden.
“The ACLU’s suggestion that the Kentucky Constitution somehow secretly contains a hidden right to terminate the life and stop the beating heart of an unborn human being, despite Kentucky’s clear 150-year pro-life history, is absolutely absurd,” David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, previously said.
WAVE reports that during Monday’s arguments before Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Tracey Davis, the ACLU requested that the suit be broadened into a class-action suit representing the “interests” of all pregnant women in Kentucky. Davis is slated to rule on that particular question on January 3, the same day as an evidentiary hearing for the case.
“I was really heartened to hear the judge state very clearly that she believes in the constitution, that she’s going to give all of the claims put before her a fair hearing and also that she understands the very timely, temporal nature of pregnancy,” said ACLU of Kentucky Executive Director Amber Duke. “I think she was very clear today that she’s going to be thorough in this case and also that it is going to move quickly.”
Kentucky Right to Life executive director Addia Wuchner expressed gratitude that Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office “presented a thorough and compelling argument against the ACLU’s motion.”
“We applaud Assistant AG Lindsey Keiser and the legal team for their skillful defense of Kentucky’s ProLife laws,” Wuchner said. “We are profoundly grateful for the prayers and support from Kentuckians and beyond. We turned to Heaven to hear our cries, and we pray that Mary Poe’s heart will turn toward choosing life for her child, Baby Poe.” The statement was issued prior to the news that Baby Poe had been aborted out of state.
13 states ban most abortions, with lesser restrictions and regulations on the books in numerous others. Seven out of ten states enshrined abortion “rights” into their constitutions in the 2024 elections, although three states saw the first ballot losses for the abortion lobby since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. With Roe gone, pro-abortion lawyers and activist judges have turned to trying to use state constitutions rather than the U.S. Constitution to insulate abortion-on-demand from legislative prohibition.