Washington D.C., Mar 30, 2021 / 14:00 pm
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider whether Kentucky’s pro-life attorney general can defend the commonwealth’s law banning dismemberment abortions.
The court announced it was granting one question of the petition for certiorari, in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C.
While Kentucky’s law concerns the legality of a second-trimester abortion procedure, the Supreme Court will not rule on the law itself. Instead, the court will only consider if the attorney general, a Republican who supports the law, can intervene to defend it in court.
In 2018, Kentucky’s then-governor Matt Bevin, a Republican, signed the bill into law which banned the use of dilation and evacuation abortions, or “dismemberment” abortions. The bill was quickly challenged by an abortion clinic, and a federal judge agreed that the law was unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals also found the bill to be unconstitutional.