LEXINGTON, KY – Today, the ACLU filed a new legal challenge seeking to have Kentucky courts invent a “right” to abortion that would overturn Kentucky’s duly-enacted pro-life laws.
The challenge, filed on behalf of a pregnant mother seeking class-action status for “pregnant individuals,” is specifically targeting Kentucky’s Human Life Protection Act and Heartbeat Law. The seriously flawed constitutional arguments made by the ACLU would put at risk all of Kentucky’s pro-life laws, including Kentucky’s bans on late-term abortion and discriminatory abortions based on race, sex, or disability.
Statement from David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, in response to the lawsuit:
“This new legal attack on preborn Kentuckians and their mothers is as meritless as the previous failed challenges. The ACLU’s suggestion that the Kentucky Constitution somehow secretly contains a hidden right to terminate the life and stop the beating heart of an unborn human being, despite Kentucky’s clear 150-year pro-life history, is absolutely absurd. The ACLU’s own complaint acknowledges that the Kentucky Constitution guarantees a right to life.
“Kentucky’s pro-life laws are saving babies and protecting mothers every day. It is truly sad to see how far the billion-dollar abortion industry is willing to go in this attempt to resume killing unborn children for profit. Kentucky must hope that our state judges resist the temptation to put their own personal ideologies above the law and infringe upon the duly enacted pro-life laws of our Commonwealth.
“We look forward to Attorney General Coleman’s robust defense of Kentucky law, and we stand united in moving forward to build a pro-life culture that values all human life by protecting every mother and every preborn child from the evil of abortion,” Walls concluded.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the egregiously wrong Roe decision with the Dobbs decision in June of 2023, Kentucky’s Human Life Protection Act went into effect protecting preborn children throughout pregnancy. After a staunch defense of Kentucky’s pro-life laws by Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the Kentucky Supreme Court declaring that an activist Louisville judge had been wrong to temporarily halt enforcement of the law, the abortion industry dropped its meritless challenge. The Family Foundation had joined a legal brief at the Kentucky Supreme Court in defense of Kentucky’s pro-life laws.
In December of 2023, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed an additional challenge to Kentucky’s pro-life laws, but the case was dropped later that month. Kentucky’s Human Life Protection Act has now been in effect for well over 2 years and preborn children remain protected throughout the Commonwealth.
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The Family Foundation is the leading Christian public policy organization in Kentucky and stands for Kentucky families and the Biblical values that make them strong. Learn more at kentuckyfamily.org.
