Kentucky Supreme Court denies AG’s request to enforce trigger law banning abortion
Kentucky’s highest court late Monday rejected the latest request from Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron to bypass a lower court’s order and allow him to enforce the state’s trigger law banning abortion.
“Having reviewed the record and otherwise being sufficiently advised, it is hereby ordered that the Petitioner’s emergency motion for intermediate relief is denied,” Chief Justice John Minton wrote in the two-page ruling issued just after 9 p.m. The high court did not elaborate: “This order expresses no opinion on the substantive issues in this matter.”
Cameron, who is running for governor, called the rejection “disappointing.” It’s the latest in a series of losses the attorney general has been dealt in his pursuit to enforce what he has called a “duly-enacted” law passed by the General Assembly that aims to protect “unborn lives.”
Kentucky’s trigger law banning nearly all abortions took immediate effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24. The state’s two abortion providers, Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center, sued the state the following Monday, arguing that a right to privacy and bodily autonomy was protected by the Kentucky Constitution.
Their request for a temporary restraining order blocking the trigger law from taking effect was granted by Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Mitch Perry last week. That ordered allowed abortions to continue, at least temporarily. The Supreme Court’s refusal to grant Cameron’s request allows that order to stay in place.
Cameron asked the Kentucky Court of Appeals to intercede and undo Judge Perry’s injunction. He argued that by not enforcing the law, the order inflicts “irreparable harm” to the state of Kentucky. “And even more importantly, the restraining order guarantees the ending of lives,” Cameron wrote in his request. “If that is not [a] kind of irreparable harm . . . then what is?”
The Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected his request on Saturday, in part, Judge Glenn Acree said, because Planned Parenthood and EMW had constitutional standing to sue over the new law. Personal injury resulted from the trigger law locking into place, because, he wrote — “the challenged statutes directly prohibit (Kentucky’s abortion clinics) from lawfully engaging in both medication abortions and procedural abortions.”
Then, on Sunday, Cameron sought relief from the state’s highest court.
After the high court shut down that request late Tuesday, Cameron tweeted, “we’ve now asked all three levels of Kentucky’s judiciary to allow these laws to take effect. Not a single judge at any level has suggested these laws are unconstitutional, yet we are unfortunately still prohibited from enforcing them.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, representing EMW in its lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday, “Kentucky deserves better. Attorney General Cameron has wasted taxpayer dollars and countless court resources, all in a desperate attempt to enforce outright abortion bans that threaten Kentuckians’ most fundamental right to control their bodies.”
A hearing on Perry’s restraining order, and whether the need a more permanent injunction is met, is scheduled for later Wednesday morning.
This story may be updated.
This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 8:20 AM.
