A judge blocked a Kentucky law which instituted a near total ban on abortion in the state Thursday.
The judge’s decision makes Kentucky the third state, after Texas and Louisiana, to have a trigger law blocked following the Supreme Court’s Friday decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center. After the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, the abortion issue has been returned to the states, allowing many states to reinstate bans previously nullified by Roe. (RELATED: Here’s Why The Government Can’t Set Up Abortion Clinics On Federal Land)
The Kentucky trigger law bans all abortions except in the case where the life of the mother is endangered. The judge’s temporary block of the law extended also to a separate law which banned abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
The ACLU challenged the Kentucky abortion ban Monday, claiming it, “forced to remain pregnant against their will.” The judge’s block of the law is temporary, but the court will make a final ruling on the lawsuit in July.
BREAKING:
A restraining order has been GRANTED in state court – blocking Kentucky’s abortion bans. It blocks the trigger law and a 6 week ban.@LEX18News pic.twitter.com/wJXglwWL9a
— Karolina Buczek (@Karolina_Buczek) June 30, 2022
“A Kentucky Circuit Court has blocked the state’s total abortion ban and six-week ban, granting our request for a restraining order,” the ACLU wrote on Twitter shortly after the block.
“We will do everything possible to continue defending this law and to ensure that unborn life is protected in the Commonwealth,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, said in a statement.
Texas and Louisiana both had trigger laws blocked in June. Judges will hold hearings on both of the laws in July. Ten other states have near total bans on abortion that can go into effect after the Dobbs decision.