FRANKFURT, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Supreme Court on Thursday refused to allow abortions to resume in the state, denying a request to end a months-long near-total ban.
The court, which was considering appeals of the state’s near-total ban and another appeal banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, sent the case back to a lower court for further consideration of related constitutional issues. one of the prohibitions.
The court came after Kentucky voters last year rejected a measure that would have denied any constitutional protections for abortion.
In July, Louisville Judge Mitch Perry suspended enforcement of abortion bans over possible violations of the rights to privacy and self-determination established in the state Constitution. He said it was not the court’s role to determine whether the state Constitution guaranteed the right to abortion, but rather to decide whether the new bans violated constitutional freedoms.
But the state Court of Appeals reinstated the bans, and the state Supreme Court opted in August to uphold them while it considers the case.
Kentucky’s tough abortion law was passed in 2019 and went into effect in 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade who decriminalized abortion nationwide in 1973. Kentucky law prohibits termination of pregnancy except to save the life of the mother or prevent disabling injury. It does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
Two Louisville abortion clinics have appealed the bans.
Thirteen states across the country have laws banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy, but in at least six states the strict restrictions are currently on hold due to legal action.