Judge extends order blocking Kentucky abortion ban

by Julia Mueller - 07/22/22 1:45 PM ET

Claire Savage/ AP
A Planned Parenthood health center is shown in Waukegan, Ill., June 28, 2022. Planned Parenthood of Illinois is combining forces with its Wisconsin counterpart to help patients travel to get abortions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month. Leaders at the reproductive health centers announced efforts Thursday to provide access to abortion, which remains legal in Illinois. Doctors in Wisconsin halted the procedure while courts determine whether the state’s 1849 law banning most abortions stands.

A Kentucky order blocking an abortion ban was extended Friday, preventing a “trigger” law from taking effect and keeping the procedure legal in the state.

The trigger law went into effect after the recent U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. But Kentucky’s Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Mitch Perry suspended the ban with a June 30 temporary order.

Perry extended that order with a temporary injunction Friday.

The injunction will prevent enforcement of a ban that would criminalize almost all abortions in the state, and comes after a challenge from Kentucky abortion-rights groups contending that the state constitution protects the right to the procedure.

Leaders from the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Indiana, Kentucky lauded Perry’s injunction and lambasted the ban.

The trigger law would mean “devastating consequences for Kentuckians,” the advocates wrote in a statement Friday. “Once again, the courts have rightly stopped Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s relentless efforts to ban abortion.”

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R), who called the recent SCOTUS decision “an historic victory for life,” has made several requests to reinstate the ban and prevent any injunction.

“Every day that these laws are not enforced is a day in which unborn children of the Commonwealth perish,” Cameron wrote in a July 18 filing. The attorney general is running for governor of Kentucky in this year’s midterms.