Judge temporarily blocks enforcement of KY’s new abortion law a week after it passed
A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a far-reaching abortion law in Kentucky roughly a week after it was passed by Republican lawmakers.
“The Court restrains enforcement of the entirety of House Bill 3 at this time, as it lacks information to specifically determine which individual provisions and subsections are capable of compliance,” District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings wrote in a 21-page ruling Thursday afternoon. Planned Parenthood’s “motion for a temporary restraining order is granted.”
The Thursday ruling means health care providers at the state’s only two abortion facilities in Louisville can resume offering abortions. Both were forced to stop providing abortions on April 14, once the law took effect.
The Republican-led General Assembly eight days ago overrode Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of House Bill 3 and passed it into law. The bill contained an emergency clause and took effect immediately.
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky sought emergency relief from the new law the next day by filing two lawsuits petitioning a federal judge to block House Bill 3 from taking effect.
When asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky to intervene, Planned Parenthood called the bill “tantamount to a ban on abortion” and said it instituted “unnecessary abortion requirements while simultaneously making those requirements impossible to comply with, given the immediate effective date of the law, forcing providers to stop offering abortion services.”
Not only does the new law ban abortion after 15 weeks in Kentucky — a section of the bill modeled after the Mississippi case before the U.S. Supreme Court that could lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer — it also:
- Makes illegal the mailing of abortion pills.
- Tightens the current laws impacting parental consent for minors seeking abortions.
- Raises the bar for when a court can grant judicial bypass for a minor seeking an abortion.
- Codifies that no “public agency funds” are used, directly or indirectly, to fund an abortion.
- Mandates the state publish the names and addresses of all physicians who perform abortions to a public database, as well as personal details of all patients who get an abortion.
- Requires the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to create an extensive certification and monitoring system to track anyone who dispenses, ships and manufactures abortion pills.
- Requires the state to create an online complaint portal to receive anonymous complaints, each of which must be investigated.
The new law institutes steep fines, loss of medical license, and criminal penalties for health care providers who violate the law, but compliance with portions of it are currently impossible. To dole out abortion pills to a patient in person, for example, a provider is required to log information into a new monitoring database, the Abortion Inducing Drug Certification Program, which does not yet exist. Continuing to dispense pills without reporting the information through the required channels can result in civil and professional penalties and a felony charge, according to the law.
Because of the inability for providers to comply, Planned Parenthood argues that passage of the law resulted in a de facto ban on abortion — a point Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron takes issue with.
Cameron, a Republican, asked the court on Tuesday not to grant Planned Parenthood’s request, calling the new law “common sense” because it “enacts a number of varying, much-needed regulatory reforms on abortion practices in Kentucky.”
Cameron said Planned Parenthood is challenging the law “on grounds that (providers) cannot comply with administrative forms and regulations that the Cabinet has not yet created,” but he said that interpretation of the new law is “wrong.”
“Once the Cabinet has created those forms in compliance with House Bill 3, then Planned Parenthood’s obligation to utilize those forms kicks in,” he wrote. “The bill in no way shuts that business down or orders it to cease operations.”
But Judge Jennings disagreed.
“The plain language of HB 3 is clear that the entire law became effective and enforceable on April 13, 2022 . . . including the enforcement and penalties provisions,” she wrote, adding that it’s “unreasonable for [abortion providers] to assume HB 3 does not mean what it states.”
Until the Cabinet for Health and Family Services creates a mechanism for abortion providers to comply with the law, any abortion performed is unlawful, Jennings said.
“Because [Planned Parenthood] cannot comply with HB 3 and thus cannot legally perform abortion services, its patients face a substantial obstacle to exercising their rights to a pre-viability abortion,” which is an “undue burden,” she wrote.
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest CEO Rebecca Gibron said her organization was “grateful” the temporary restraining order was granted.
“This is a win, but it is only the first step,” she said. “We’re prepared to fight for our patients’ right to basic health in court and continue doing everything in our power to ensure abortion access is permanently secured in Kentucky.”
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect for 14 days, Jennings said, during which time a preliminary injunction hearing will be scheduled to further judge the merits of Planned Parenthood’s complaint.
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 3:49 PM.
