LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Gov. Andy Beshear on Friday vetoed legislation that would have given Attorney General Daniel Cameron new authority to regulate abortion clinics.
While Cameron called the move "reprehensible," Beshear's action was cheered by abortion rights groups.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 9 on April 15, the final day of the 2020 Kentucky General Assembly. Known as the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, it would require state doctors to provide life-saving care to any infant born alive, including after a failed abortion attempt.
The legislation also would have given Cameron, a Republican and abortion rights opponent, the power to suspend abortions as an elective procedure during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The proposed law also would have given Cameron the ability to take civil or criminal action against abortion facilities. Under current law, the attorney general needs authorization from the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services before taking such action.
Beshear said he vetoed the legislation because "Kentucky law already fully protects children from being denied life-saving medical care and treatment when they are born, according to his veto message. Beshear, a former Kentucky attorney general, also said that similar measures elsewhere have been struck by courts.
"During this worldwide health pandemic, it is simply not the time for a divisive set of lawsuits that reduce our unity and our focus on defeating the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and restarting our economy," the governor said.
Cameron, in a statement released Friday evening, called Beshear's veto "reprehensible" and "an affront to the people of Kentucky, whose elected representatives voted in a bipartisan manner for the bill."
"It’s also disheartening that he would issue a veto against a bill that gives my office the authority to hold abortion clinics accountable to the law," Cameron said.
"While the Governor’s purported reason for vetoing the bill was to avoid creating unnecessary divisiveness during this health crisis, there is no more divisive action than to veto a bill that received support from both sides of the aisle and protects our most vulnerable," he said.
Lawmakers won't have an opportunity to override Beshear's veto because the General Assembly has adjourned. In a statement released Friday, House Speaker David Osborne, a Republican from Oldham County, said he was "outraged and saddened" by Beshear's veto and added, "this is not the end of this issue."
"Make no mistake, the governor had a choice and he used it to defend the indefensible," Osborne said.
The bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Crofton, also criticized the governor's veto.
"I'm not surprised, but I am supremely disappointed the governor has once again shown his hostility to unborn life," he said.
In late March, Cameron called on Kentucky's abortion providers to "follow the same laws as other medical professionals and stop performing elective procedures" during the pandemic, with the lone exception being if "the life of the mother is at risk." The continuation of abortions during the pandemic, despite Beshear's executive order to halt elective medical procedures, showed the new enforcement powers for his office are "necessary and timely," the attorney general argued.
There are two abortion providers in Kentucky: EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville and Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which was granted a provisional license from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services "to offer a full range of reproductive health care, including abortion," in late January.
Abortion rights advocates with the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Indiana and Kentucky applauded the governor's veto, calling Senate Bill 9 a power grab by anti-abortion Republicans.
"Now more than ever, sound science and medical expertise should guide public policy, not political games and an extreme agenda," NARAL President Ilyse Hogue said.
Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky state director for PPAIK, said, "Not only is this bill unnecessary, it is a blatant display of anti-abortion politics by extremists in the Kentucky General Assembly."
Kentucky lawmakers have moved aggressively to put restrictions and conditions on abortion since Republicans assumed total control of the legislature in the 2017 session. Some of those laws are being challenged in courts, including one that would ban abortion once a heartbeat is detected, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2020 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
