Kentucky attorney general wants abortions stopped during coronavirus pandemic
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron wants Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration to end abortion procedures in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, Cameron called on acting Cabinet for Health and Family Services Eric Friedlander to certify that Kentucky’s abortion providers are violating the governor’s emergency ban on elective medical procedures by continuing to perform abortions.
He said Friedlander’s certification “will immediately trigger action by our office to stop elective procedures during the pandemic.”
Cameron, a Republican, added in his statement to Friedlander: “Abortion providers should join the thousands of other medical professionals across the state in ceasing elective procedures, unless the life of the mother is at risk, to protect the health of their patients and slow the spread of the coronavirus.”
The ACLU of Kentucky and Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky condemned Cameron.
“It is outrageous that Attorney General Cameron and Kentucky politicians are trying to take advantage of a public health crisis to push their anti-abortion agenda,” said Heather Gatnarek, a staff attorney for ACLU of Kentucky.
She said “trusted health organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have made clear politicians should not push ‘COVID-19 responses that cancel or delay abortion procedures.’”
Abortion, said Gatnarek, is “a time-sensitive service for which a delay of several weeks, or in some cases days, may increase the risks or potentially make it completely inaccessible.”
Kentucky law bans abortions after 20 weeks.
Gatnarek said EMW is following all guidance from public health experts to ensure that its patients’ risk of contacting the virus are minimized, including social distancing and screening for symptoms of the virus.
Beshear, a Democrat who has said he supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade to let a woman choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction, said Thursday he will leave the question of abortion to health professionals.
“I leave it to our health professionals to determine what falls in the elective or the essential,” Beshear said. “ I have not made one single decision on that. My focus is 100 percent on the coronavirus each and every day. And you know what? I’m not going to get out there on any other issue or any other cause, no matter how important they are to me.
“This is my sole focus, because the surge is coming,” he said. “We have increased cases every day.”
He added: “Now is not the time for any traditional battles that might have happened between various parties. Now is the time to come together.”
Beshear announced earlier this week that he was issuing an executive order canceling elective surgeries.
The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services regulates abortion clinics in Kentucky.
EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville is the only licensed abortion clinic in Kentucky. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky announced in January that its Louisville Health Center would provide abortion services, effective in March.
Chris Charbonneau, chief executive officer of the Planned Parenthood group, said “our doors remain open for care.”
She called abortion “an essential, time-sensitive medical procedure, as medical experts like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologistsists and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology have recognized.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America, a national group that tries to protect women’s rights to abortion, said in a release that Kentucky has joined “a growing list of states to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to push an anti-choice agenda and roll back access to abortion, prioritizing an extreme ideological agenda over medical expertise and science.”
The Kentucky Right to Life’s website contained a letter Friday by Executive Director Margie Montgomerythat said the Beshear administration is ignoring the governor’s executive order that all non-essential and elective surgeries be canceled.
She said hundreds of Kentuckians are asking elected officials, “whose responsibility is to protect tiny human lives, why these killing centers are getting a pass at this critical time, but receive no response.”
The Republican-led Kentucky General Assembly is considering legislation to broaden the attorney general’s authority over abortion laws.
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 2:52 PM.
