Heavy traffic seen in abortion bills
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, March, 1998

A right-wing stampede.” “Whirlwind of right-wing legislation.” “Stealth legislation.” These are some of the terms used by one journalist to describe the flurry of pro-life legislation moving through the Kentucky General Assembly.

Indeed, supporters of so-called “abortion rights” have cause for concern.

In previous sessions of the General Assembly, abortion bills have made it on occasion through the House, only to end up stalled in the Senate, where powerful committee chairmen controlled the flow of bills. But this session, many of the chairmen who made life difficult for pro-life advocates are gone.

Kelsey Friend, longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where numerous abortion bills met their fate, was unseated in 1996.

The result has been heavy legislative traffic. A bill requiring informed consent before a doctor performs an abortion and a bill outlawing partial birth abortions have met little resistance (although, as we go to press, HB 85, an informed consent bill which had been approved by the House Judiciary Committee, was sent to the Appropriations and Revenue Committee before it could get a vote on the House floor, a move which usually signals opposition among House leaders).

But the bill which has upset abortion advocates the most is a bill that defines the unborn child as a person. House Bill 292 would allow civil prosecution in the case where an unborn child is killed and defines the unborn child as a human person.

The reaction to the passage of the bill on the House floor was a sort of surprised outrage on the part of some journalists at the state’s major newspapers. According to Bill Bishop, an editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader, the bill would result in making not only abortion, but most forms of birth control illegal.

“The cells-as-person movement is on a fast march through Frankfort,” said Bishop. “Women who smoke or drink or take drugs during pregnancy might be charged with criminal offenses, if their children are born in less than perfect condition.”

Pro-life groups dispute these assertions, but bill sponsor Tom Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, said in comments to the press that there very well could be ramifications down the road for the legal status of abortion.

More bills are expected to be voted on in legislative committees between now and the end of March, and many observers on both sides believe that some will get through the entire legislative process.

But one thing is sure: the 1998 session is already shaping up to be one of the most actively pro-life in living memory.
 

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