Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill on Friday that bans abortions after 15 weeks because it contains “no exceptions or exclusions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.”
The measure passed both chambers with nearly unanimous support among GOP lawmakers and easily had enough votes to override the governor’s veto.
Beshear took particular issue with the fact that the bill does not provide exceptions or exclusions for victims of rape or incest.
“House Bill 3 contains no exceptions or exclusions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest … Rape and incest are violent crimes,” Beshear wrote. “Victims of these crimes should have options, not be further scarred through a process that exposes them to more harm from their rapists or that treats them like offenders themselves.”
Bill sponsor Rep. Nancy Tate, R-Brandenburg, said that abortion is not the answer even for survivors of rape or incest. Tate called abortion the “ultimate punishment of death for the child in the womb that is conceived from a heinous crime.”
The bill’s language banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy was added from a separate proposal by Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville.
The provision is modeled after a Mississippi bill currently on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, Mississippi has asked the high court to not only uphold its 15-week abortion ban, but to also overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case prohibiting states from banning abortion before a fetus is viable, usually around 23 weeks.
Beshear projected that at least one part of the bill – one that requires physicians performing nonsurgical procedures to maintain hospital admitting privileges in proximity to the location where the procedure is performed – will be found unconstitutional.
Jennifer M. Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, also called the bill unconstitutional and praised Beshear’s veto: “Because it would effectively ban abortion in the commonwealth, HB 3 is the most dangerous package of anti-abortion policies to come out of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is unconstitutional, anti-science, and against the wishes of the majority of Kentuckians who want access to safe and legal abortion.”
By Ken Howlett, News Director and the Lexington Herald-Leader
