FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Abortion rights advocates rallied at the Kentucky Capitol on Tuesday. They urged state lawmakers to restore access to abortion services.
"We are here," said Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates executive director Tamarra Wieder. "We are not going anywhere, and we are not going to lose."
Currently, the state has a near-total abortion ban in place. Despite efforts to restore access, advocates aren't hopeful that things will change this year.
"I don't have hope because the legislators who are powerful want it. They're very happy with where we are right now when it comes to no access to abortion," said Weider. "And in fact, we've seen bills - that in my opinion - hint at more restrictions."
However, Wieder and other advocates say they won't give up. She believes Kentuckians have already voiced their support for abortion access when they defeated Amendment 2 and ensured no anti-abortion language was added to the state's Constitution.
"There's a lot of anger when we talk to Kentuckians - and it runs the gamut. People who didn't see themselves as activists on this issue before are really angry," said Wieder. "And it's not just Louisville and Lexington. It is all across the Commonwealth."
For example, it's people like Danielle Kirk from Eastern Kentucky.
"You don't mess with Appalachian women," she said at the rally.
"People who don't live the lives that we live - who often have never really met us...are the ones who get to dictate, are the ones who get to decide the way our life is, and what our future is," she said.
Earlier this year, Kentuckians who oppose abortion rights celebrated the end of Roe v Wade at the State Capitol, holding signs that said: "I am the post-Roe generation."
Kentucky's current abortion ban, which is considered one of the most restrictive in the country, only offers one exception - for the life of the woman. That means victims of rape and incest do not have access to abortion services in the Commonwealth. And the lack of exceptions has become a significant talking point in Kentucky.
But Kentucky Right To Life does not believe more exceptions are needed. At their rally in January, speakers said although rape is a violent crime, they believe victims should not have access to abortion.
"Rape and incest is a violent crime - it is an assault against women and children. And on that issue we need to do more," said Addia Wuchner, the group's executive director.
"The conditions of our conception - how we came into being - does not change the value and dignity of our lives," she added.
Instead of easing up on Kentucky's ban, Kentucky Right To Life wants lawmakers to take things further.
Wuchner said although the abortion clinics are closed, access to abortion services is not completely cut off. And the group wants it to be. So, they're encouraging lawmakers to go after access to abortion pills.
"Transporting of drugs - abortion pills - into this state," said Wuchner. "People selling them on Amazon, giving them away for free - risking the lives of young women and, of course, those children."
Meanwhile, abortion rights supporters are pushing to restore abortion access in Kentucky with a reversal bill this year.
Democratic Rep. Lindsey Burke is calling the bill the North Star Bill. She recently explained the need for options during pregnancy while speaking about her challenging pregnancy.
"You're still going to have a child born that has no spine," she recalled her doctor telling her. "That child will never walk. That child will never have bladder control. That child will probably not live until age one."
Burke said while she was pregnant with twins, serious health issues were found with one of her babies. Those issues also put the other baby at risk, according to Burke.
"Chances are you will lose Baby A and you might lose Baby B also," Burke recalled her doctor saying.
Burke explained that she took her doctor's advice and left Kentucky to get a selective termination.
"Ezra - Baby A - was gone. But we managed to save Baby B - Ewan," Burke said.
Burke's experience reinforced her desire to help women in Kentucky have options during pregnancy.
"It's not always a straightforward 'yay, we have a happy, positive pregnancy test. Nine months - oh, I got a little sick to my tummy but everything's okay - and now we have a baby.' That's not reality," said Burke. "So, when we legislate like that's reality, it fails to recognize that a vast majority of pregnant peoples' experience is not like that."
Burke's North Star Bill would roll back Kentucky’s abortion laws to the time before Republicans claimed majority status in the House after the 2016 election. Since then, GOP lawmakers who dominate the legislature have passed a series of bills putting more restrictions on abortion, culminating in the near-total ban.
Republican supermajorities in Kentucky’s legislature skipped over the abortion issue last year and so far have not taken up abortion-related measures in this year’s session.
“I think the truth is that there’s very little appetite for change, at least among the supermajority,” Burke said.
But she predicted that grassroots activism to restore abortion access would eventually pay dividends.
“The more these groups get mobilized, the more they speak to their lawmakers, I think we will get to a place where action will be required,” Burke said. “And I will look forward to that day.”
Burke revealed two other bills. One would provide legal protections for private medical information and providers when patients go to other states to undergo abortions. The other bill seeks to provide more Kentucky women with information about maternal and postpartum depression.
A Senate bill introduced early in this year’s session would also relax the state’s abortion ban by allowing the procedure when pregnancies are caused by rape or incest, or when pregnancies are deemed nonviable or medical emergencies threaten the mother. The Democratic-sponsored bill has made no headway.
That bill won an endorsement from Hadley Duvall, who dominated discussion about abortion during last year’s campaign for Kentucky governor. Now a college senior in her early 20s, Duvall became pregnant as a seventh grader but ultimately miscarried. Her stepfather was convicted of rape. She recounted those traumatic events in a campaign ad for Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear that attacked his Republican challenger’s longstanding support for the state’s abortion ban. Beshear won a resounding reelection victory last November.
