On April 21, 2022 U.S. District Judge Rebecca Jennings entered a temporary restraining order halting Kentucky’s newly passed pro-life law (HB 3). The ACLU and Planned Parenthood, on behalf of Kentucky’s two abortion centers, went to court immediately after HB 3 took effect, asking that the broadly supported law protecting women and their unborn babies be blocked.
Unfortunately, Judge Jennings fell for the abortion industry’s “the sky is falling” routine, in which they falsely claimed that HB 3 required them to immediately shut down. The reality is that the abortion industry chose to voluntarily shut down rather than comply with commonsense health and safety protections for mothers and their unborn children.
As Kentucky’s pro-life Attorney General Daniel Cameron explained, “Planned Parenthood is wrong that HB 3 requires it to submit forms and comply with regulations before they exist.” The better interpretation accounts for HB 3 as a whole and it is commonsense, that “Planned Parenthood will not be required to use and/or submit such forms until the Cabinet has created and distributed them.”
However, Judge Jennings dismissed Cameron’s arguments and sided completely with pro-abortion advocates.
The fact that Planned Parenthood could fully comply with many of the reporting requirements by simply providing the required information in a manner it finds expedient, even if required before a form is created, was ignored by the judge.
To side with the abortion industry, who profits on the killing of unborn human children, and block health and safety protections for Kentucky’s women and their unborn children before all the facts are even known is an alarming miscarriage of justice.
The special favor and deference shown to the abortion industry exposes the temporary restraining order against HB 3 as nothing more than another activist judicial ruling. Kentuckians can protect against future activist rulings at the state level by passing the “YES for Life” Consitutional Amendment in November.
Click here to view and download the PDF of the print version of the Citizen paper.
