The most consequential pro-life bill in my lifetime is being considered by the Kentucky State Senate. What’s fascinating about HB 91, otherwise known as the constitutional amendment on abortion, is that it doesn’t ban or restrict a single abortion procedure. Instead, it makes clear who will decide questions regarding abortion. An unelected judiciary? Or the legislative branch?
Of course, the democratic process didn’t deliver abortion on demand through an act of Congress or the Kentucky state legislature. This most divisive of social issues was pushed upon the American people by seven U.S. Supreme Court judges in their notorious Roe v Wade ruling in 1973. Now after decades of divisive politics and hundreds of restrictions passed in state legislatures (many only to be struck down by lower federal courts) the wearied Supreme Court is expected to relent of its most premature of decisions and hand the question back to the states.
Richard Nelson
Such a move would disentangle the federal courts from the question of abortion. When that happens, each state will be empowered to pass life-affirming laws. Or left-leaning states like California and New York may pass laws to codify abortion. However, if states don’t clarify that abortion isn’t a constitutional right, a state-level judge may discover a right to abortion in Roe-like fashion in the “penumbras and emanations” of their own constitutions.
The Kentucky State legislature can prevent another Roe v Wade by amending the constitution to clarify that abortion isn’t a right. HB 91 simply says “To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” The State House passed it overwhelmingly on February 26 by a 76-20 vote. It’s now up to the Kentucky Senate where its fate is uncertain.
Several other states have passed similar amendments. The Kansas legislature recently voted to put the same question on the ballot next year. Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia have similar abortion amendments already on the books. All the constitutional provisions remain in effect. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Tennessee’s abortion amendment in 2018.
You’d think that such an amendment would easily pass Kentucky’s pro-life legislature. However, internal politics in the Kentucky Senate Republican caucus may derail the final passage of the bill. Republicans hold 30 of 38 Senate seats but for some reason, key Republican Senators appear to be holding back this session. Failure to pass it a second year in a row threatens to demoralize pro-lifers, the most vocal and faithful part of the GOP base responsible for Republican ascendency in the commonwealth.
Democrats are not without their own dilemma. The bill is democratic in the purest sense of the word. It restricts an elite judiciary from imposing their policy preferences and empowers the people to shape opinion in public forums. It allows the legislative branch—the people’s branch to make decisions with widespread public input. It also restores a balance of power between the judicial and legislative branches (at least on this issue). Yet it’s unlikely that a single Democratic Senator will vote for HB 91 if it’s taken up in one of the two remaining days of the 2021 General Assembly session.
HB 91 is a mere 25 words, but if they become part of the state constitution they’d restrict any activist state judge from serving up a multi-page word salad where a right to end the life of an unborn child is somehow discovered. It would be the first time Kentucky’s constitution would mention the word abortion. It’s now up to the Kentucky Senate to determine who should be answering that question.
Richard Nelson is founder and executive director of the Commonwealth Policy Center.
The writer represents a far right “think tank” and for the most part, the Legislature follows right along. Easy prediction: The Governor will veto the bill, the Legislature will override, courts will then strike down the law resulting in the Republican’s only hope left being that the McConnell packed Supreme Court will come to their rescue. A lot of taxpayer dollars will be spent on lawyer fees.
I’m a very socially liberal person, but I cannot fathom support from anyone for abortion or getting an abortion. It is undebatable it’s a human life at any point in a pregnancy cycle even from conception. I pray to God that abortion finally becomes illegal in any way shape or form, and in the mean time that a proper funeral and burial be had for the poor little babies whos lives are taken away.
Who has a right to stop a life? Who?
I think at the very least a non-profit should be set up to cover costs to give funerals and buy grave spots for all of the babies that dismantled, cut off from life, and pulled into a cold dark room where their visible body parts begin to waste away.
This should not, and frankly is not a partisan issue although people like to think it is partisan. I have many people in my liberal circle who are on the same page and think abortion is disgusting, and plain wrong.