A pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state's near-total abortion ban on grounds that the law violates her constitutional right to privacy and self-determination.
Attorneys for the woman, a state resident identified as Mary Poe in the lawsuit, filed the lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court.
"I feel overwhelmed and frustrated that I cannot access abortion care here in my own state, and I have started the difficult process of arranging to get care in another state where it's legal," Poe said in a statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. "This involves trying to take time off work and securing child care, all of which place an enormous burden on me."
Kentucky law bans abortions after six weeks and a second trigger law, which automatically took effect when Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, is a near-total ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest but allows for an abortion to prevent the death or "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" of the pregnant woman, NBC News reported.
Poe is seven weeks pregnant.
The lawsuit names Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and other state officials. While Coleman said in a statement he believes "the law should be amended to include exceptions for rape and incest," it's unclear if either applies in Poe's case.
Regardless, "It's the attorney general's responsibility to defend the laws passed by the General Assembly, and we will zealously work to uphold these laws in court," his statement said.
Poe is represented by attorneys from the ACLU, who wrote in the lawsuit that "Kentuckians have lost the right to make critical decisions about their health, bodies, lives and futures."
The executive director of The Family Foundation called the suit "absolutely absurd."
"The ACLU's suggestion that the Kentucky Constitution somehow secretly contains a hidden right to terminate the life and stop the beating heart of an unborn human being, despite Kentucky's clear 150-year pro-life history, is absolutely absurd," David Walls said in a statement.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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