A woman in Kentucky who is seeking an abortion filed a lawsuit Tuesday that seeks to strike down the state’s near total ban.
The suit, filed by a woman referred to in the documents as Mary Poe, alleges that two Kentucky abortion laws violate the state Constitution’s rights to privacy and self-determination. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday afternoon in the Jefferson County Circuit Court.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement and complaint shared first with NBC News that the lawsuit reflects “the severe harms that Mary Poe, who is approximately seven weeks pregnant, is suffering because the government has denied her access to the care she needs.”
“I feel overwhelmed and frustrated that I cannot access abortion care here in my own state, and I have started the difficult process of arranging to get care in another state where it’s legal. This involves trying to take time off work and securing child care, all of which place an enormous burden on me,” Poe said in the statement. “This is my personal decision, a decision I believe should be mine alone, not one made by anyone else. I am bringing this case to ensure that other Kentuckians will not have to go through what I am going through, and instead will be able to get the health care they need in our community.”
Kentucky enacted laws after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 2022. The first law prohibits seeking or administering an abortion in almost all instances. The second makes it a felony for doctors in Kentucky to perform the procedure after the sixth week of pregnancy except to
prevent the death or “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” of the pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or a fatal fetal condition.
Kentucky is one of more than a dozen states where abortion is essentially banned or unavailable, and additional states have moved to restrict the procedure since Roe was overturned.
Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement that “as we have seen in Kentucky and across the country, abortion bans have wreaked havoc on people’s lives.”
“Those who can scrape together the resources may be able to travel out of state to get care, but others will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term against their will, often at great cost to their health or lives,” she said.
Poe’s lawsuit is also requesting class-action status for all pregnant people in Kentucky who are seeking access to abortion in the state but are not allowed to receive the medical treatment because of the abortion laws.
In 2022,
Kentucky voters rejected
a ballot proposal that would have changed the state Constitution to explicitly say that it does not protect a right to abortion.
Amber Duke, executive director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in the statement that the organization has been “fighting tirelessly” to restore access to abortion in the state and that she “applaud Mary’s bravery in partnering with us to renew this legal fight.”
“We hope for an ultimate victory that aligns with the will of the people and overturns these unconstitutional bans,” she said.
In 2022, the ACLU was involved in a lawsuit brought by abortion providers on behalf of their patients. The Supreme Court of Kentucky decided in that case that abortion providers as plaintiffs were not able to raise the constitutional rights of their patients.
Another case
brought by a pregnant Kentuckian in 2023
was ultimately unable to proceed and was dismissed, according to the ACLU.
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