Judge blocks law that denies an abortion after heartbeat detected
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Kentucky law that prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which typically happens around six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
The measure, which was signed into law Friday by the state’s Republican governor, Matt Bevin, and was set to take effect immediately, was poised to become one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country.
But late Friday, the judge, David J. Hale of the Western District of Kentucky, ruled that the law was potentially unconstitutional. He halted enforcement for at least 14 days to “prevent irreparable harm” until he could hold a hearing.
The ruling came amid a yearslong effort to curb abortions in Kentucky, which has one remaining abortion clinic. Several other states are considering similar measures, known as heartbeat bills, as states move to restrict — or shore up access to — abortion in anticipation of a more conservative Supreme Court possibly ruling on the issue.
The Kentucky law was one of two measures seeking to restrict abortion that were passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature last week but are now being contested. The other, a bill that prohibits abortion if a woman wants to end her pregnancy because of the diagnosis of a disability in the fetus, among other reasons, is awaiting approval from the governor.
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged both measures in a lawsuit filed last week on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center, the state’s only licensed abortion clinic.
“We think this is a very straightforward legal issue,” Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said Saturday. “States can’t ban abortion. It has been well settled over 40 years ago in Roe v. Wade.”
The judge on Friday did not address the second bill, and Amiri said the group planned to ask the judge for a ruling on it after it was signed into law.
In a video message Friday, Bevin chided his “good friends at the ACLU” for challenging the second bill, which would ban abortions based on a fetus’ disability, sex or race, before it had been signed into law and suggested they needed a civics refresher from “Schoolhouse Rock!” on how legislation works.
“They frankly don’t care whether they are following the law or not,” said Bevin, who has expressed support for the bill. “They simply want to push their ideology.”