Family legislation in 1998: a rundown
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, Jan, 1998

Two bills will be introduced. One will ensure a woman a 24-hour waiting period in which to consider the decision to abort and would ensure that she is informed about the developmental state of their unborn child and the risks of the abortion procedure.  Another would require that abortion facilities live up to the same health and safety standards as other surgical-care facilities.

Legislation could be introduced this session that would legalize video-lottery gambling, which consists of computerized gambling that would be available across the state.

With the Internet now available in schools across the state, watch for a bill to insure students do not have access to hard-core and violent pornography on school computers. Legislation could also be introduced to ban total nudity in so-called “adult entertainment” establishments, otherwise known as strip bars. Both Lexington and Louisville have had problems.

Watch for education legislation making changes in the state’s controversial testing system, as well as a proposal adding another parent to school councils, as well as offering more freedom for elementary schools to run their own primary classrooms as they see fit.

Two influential Democratic legislators, Jim Bruce, D-Hopkinsville, and Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, are expected to file a bill to head off an attempted change in the definition of marriage to include relationships between persons of the same sex.

Several competing proposals will be offered to fix the failed 1994 health care reforms. One would create a “risk pool” to help Kentuckians with health problems pay their health-care bills. Another, called “pay or play,” would require insurance companies operating in the state to share the burden of insuring those who currently have health-care problems along with healthy customers. The reforms could also be simply repealed.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst