Kentucky Pro-Life Groups Hope to Avoid a Kansas Repeat

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

46% : The proposed amendment is a proactive defense of the state's abortion bans against legal challenges currently pending against them, which have been brought by a coalition of progressive groups including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union.
45% : The plaintiffs won two early victories when a circuit court issued a restraining order against enforcement of the abortion bans on June 30 and a temporary injunction on July 28.
44% : Other proposed amendments -- on the ballot this year in deep-blue states like California -- would enshrine the right to abortion in their state constitutions as proactive attempts to ensure their already pro-choice laws can't be overturned later.
43% : The Bluegrass State is one of the most restrictive in the nation on abortion, passing several overlapping bills in recent years to limit abortion rights.
42% : Kentucky's proposal, by only stating that a right to abortion doesn't implicitly exist in the constitution, wouldn't prevent a Democratic legislature from moving later to liberalize the state's abortion regime.
41% : That's because a 2019 "trigger law" outright abolished the procedure, save for exceptions to protect a mother from death or serious injury, in the event that the court allowed states to regulate abortion again.
38% : The Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision in June punted the regulation of abortion back to the states, whose political processes can get pretty messy.
37% : "Most people -- regardless of their political affiliation -- do not believe that people should not be able to access abortion under no circumstance," said Jackie McGranahan, a policy strategist for ACLU of Kentucky.
36% : "To protect human life," the amendment says, "nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion."
34% : It may seem a strange strategic choice in a state where abortion is already illegal.
27% : There's recent reason for pro-lifers to be apprehensive about putting abortion directly on the ballot: In Republican Kansas, voters last month roundly rejected a measure that would have amended the state constitution to allow the legislature to regulate abortion.

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