Kentucky’s Supreme Court turned down a request from the commonwealth’s Republican attorney general to reimpose an abortion ban this week after a lower court previously blocked its implementation, according to a report.
The Lexington Herald-Leader said that Chief Justice John Minton denied the motion by Attorney General Daniel Cameron late Monday, with Minton noting that his order “expresses no opinion on the substantive issues of this matter.”
Kentucky’s trigger law — like a handful of others across the country — took effect on June 24 when the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to have an abortion nationwide.
The law prohibited abortions in the commonwealth except to save the life of the mother or prevent disabling injury.
But two abortion providers, Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center, sued to obtain a restraining order, the report said.
Circuit Court Judge Mitch Perry granted the request and blocked the trigger law from taking effect.
Cameron then asked the Kentucky Court of Appeals to remove Perry’s injunction because it would do “irreparable harm” to the state.
The appeals court rejected his request over the weekend, leaving Cameron to ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to intervene.
“We’ve now asked all three levels of Kentucky’s judiciary to allow these laws to take effect,” Cameron said on Twitter Tuesday. “Not a single judge at any level has suggested these laws are unconstitutional, yet we are unfortunately still prohibited from enforcing them.
“We will not be deterred in defending these important laws, and our team will make a strong case tomorrow [Wednesday] in Jefferson Circuit Court to have the laws reinstated,” the AG added.
