Kentucky Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Near-Total Abortion Ban, Twitter Users React

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday to keep the state's near-total abortion restrictions in place while a lawsuit over the matter continues to play on.

Justice Debra Lambert said that Louisville Circuit Court Judge Mitch Perry was wrong to halt enforcement of the two state laws – a ban on nearly all abortions in Kentucky and a ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy – which have been in place since August of last year.

Both bans, which the state legislature passed in 2019, criminalize abortions with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, with very narrow exceptions for life-endangering complications.

The decision comes months after Kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure that would have amended the state constitution to say there is no protection for the procedure. However, the laws were still able to take effect last year following the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

In her opinion, Justice Lambert wrote that the clinics did not have standing to challenge the statutes on behalf of their patients. However, they do have constitutional standing to challenge the trigger ban on their own behalf, she wrote.

Lambert did not shut the door for patients seeking to sue on their own behalf, and noted there is still an open question about "whether the right to abortion exists by implication under the Kentucky Constitution."

"This opinion does not in any way determine whether the Kentucky Constitution protects or does not protect the right to receive an abortion," Lambert wrote for the majority. "Nothing in this opinion shall be construed to prevent an appropriate party from filing suit at a later date."

The ACLU, arguing on behalf of clinics, said that the laws violate multiple rights guaranteed by Kentucky's state constitution, among them the "right of seeking and pursuing their safety and happiness" and freedom from "absolute and arbitrary power."

Dissents accused the court's majority of ignoring arguments made by abortion providers that the bans were causing "irreparable harm" to patients in the state.

There are now 13 states with near-total abortion bans, five states with partial bans that include gestational limits, and eight states where bans are currently blocked, and facing ongoing litigation.

Some took to Twitter to add more context about the ruling.