Kentucky governor blocks bill clarifying exceptions to pro-life law

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a measure on Tuesday that would specify medical situations in which it is permissible to separate a woman from her unborn child under the state’s pro-life law. The bill’s language places more barriers on doctors and threatens the health of women, according to the Democratic governor.

Both chambers of the Kentucky state legislature approved a bill about two weeks ago to clarify several medical exceptions in the state’s laws protecting unborn babies from being separated from their mothers. The state’s current law already includes exceptions allowing abortion if a mother's life is at stake or to prevent serious permanent damage to an organ that is medically necessary to the mother’s life. The bill Beshear vetoed gave examples of specific medical situations in which the procedure would be legal. Under these exemptions, the bill does not classify the procedure as an abortion, but as the separation of a mother from her unborn child.

What did the law allow? The bill included language specifically allowing doctors to perform the separations to end unviable ectopic or molar pregnancies that could threaten the mother’s health and to remove miscarried babies who no longer have heartbeats. The proposed law expressly allowed the separation procedures to treat sepsis or hemorrhaging triggered by a miscarriage and to finish miscarriages that are incomplete but past the point of saving the child and only threaten the mother’s health.

If the bill listed medical exceptions, how did it threaten women’s health? The bill does not list all emergency situations in which a separation would be necessary, according to Beshear. An exhaustive list of emergency situations could arise in a medical facility and only allowing doctors to perform necessary care under a finite set of circumstances threatens women's health, he claimed. Beshear used the language around hemorrhaging and sepsis as examples. The bill stops doctors from giving pregnant women necessary treatments until they are in an emergency state from bleeding or sepsis, he said. He also took issue with the bill’s swift movement through the state’s legislative chambers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists share these concerns and have supported a veto, he added.

Pro-life advocates insist that the state’s current laws already allow doctors to separate a woman from her unborn child in any situation that threatens the mother’s life.

Dig deeper: Read my report on the bill’s passage earlier this month.