Kentucky lawmaker introduces bill to restore reproductive care, protect women from prosecution
KENTUCKY (FOX 56) — Kentucky House Democratic Caucus Whip Lindsey Burke said she's following through with her promises, fighting to restore reproductive health care access in the commonwealth.
'This summer will mark the third anniversary since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and a state trigger law effectively outlawed abortion in Kentucky,' Rep. Burke of Lexington said. 'During this time, countless women have suffered significantly. Some have either died or been severely injured as a direct result of these actions, while all women have seen a cloud descend over our reproductive care. Women deserve better. That's why I have filed these bills before and why I am filing them again today.'
Kentucky voters reject constitutional amendment on abortion
Burke calls House Bill 419 'North Star,' saying it would guide abortion care back to the years following the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling.
'For most of my life, this care and access were seen by many Kentuckians as normal and just another facet of healthcare,' she said. 'Returning us to that time is not a radical idea, no matter how much others might say otherwise.'
The next filing Burke calls the 'Shield Bill.'
House Bill 418 would block prosecutors from charging anyone involved when a woman travels to other states for reproductive care services not legally available in Kentucky.
'If we cannot restore abortion care as it was, then at the very least we must better protect those who are forced to go elsewhere. It is no one's business what they do in this regard,' Burke said.
This Ky. bill aims to shut down DEI programs across colleges statewide. What would it mean for students, staff?
Kentucky lawmaker introduces bill to restore reproductive care, protect women from prosecution
6 of 7 JOANN locations in Kentucky to close: Here's where
She emphasized that the General Assembly needs to act now, as threats to reproductive health care access are 'growing' on a federal level.
'I believe a majority of Americans have made their views clear, and that includes Kentuckians in 2022's vote against an anti-abortion amendment,' Burke said. 'We need to stop politicizing health care because it's causing so much harm.'
Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates backs Burke's legislation, calling the bills a 'fierce defense of patients, providers, and the sanctity of private medical information.'
Read more of the latest news in politics
'We refuse to sit silently as politicians dictate personal health care decisions and chip away at our basic freedoms,' said Tamarra Wieder, the Kentucky State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. 'Representative Burke's bills are the first bold actions to reclaim agency ripped from us by the Dobbs decision and the abortion ban put in place by the Kentucky supermajority. At a moment when new federal threats could lock in even more restrictions on crucial reproductive care, this legislation acts as a fierce defense of patients, providers, and the sanctity of private medical information. Now more than ever, Kentucky must rise to protect people's right to decide what's best for their own bodies and lives.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court rules DOGE can access Social Security information
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled the Department of Government Efficiency could access Social Security systems with sensitive information. The ruling blocked a lower Maryland court order that kept Doge from seeking certain Social Security information due to federal privacy laws. The data from the U.S. Social Security Administration includes Social Security numbers, medical information, citizenship records, school records, and tax returns for millions of Americans. Exclusive: Legal Institute Celebrates Scotus Decision, Declares 'Religious Liberty Is Alive And Well' "We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work," the court said in an unsigned order. The six conservative justices voted for the ruling and the three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Read On The Fox News App Doge Will Go On: Hill Pork Hawk Says Rooting Out Government Waste Will Continue After Elon Jackson said the ruling created "grave privacy risks" for millions of Americans by giving "unfettered data access to DOGE regardless — despite its failure to show any need or any interest in complying with existing privacy safeguards, and all before we know for sure whether federal law countenances such access." The ruling came soon after DOGE's former head, Elon Musk, left the government and a day after he and President Donald Trump traded personal attacks that were sparked by a disagreement over the president's "Big, Beautiful" bill. DOGE's path forward after Musk's exit isn't clear, but Trump and Musk have both previously said the newly-created agency's work would continue. The Trump administration has said DOGE needs access to Social Security information to continue its core task of rooting out government waste. Musk has previously called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," and insisted on eliminating waste in the program. Maryland U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander previously ruled that DOGE's efforts with Social Security were a "fishing expedition" based on "little more than suspicion" of fraud. She did allow some access, however, to anonymous data for DOGE workers who had gone through background checks. An appeals court didn't immediately lift the block, with dissenting conservative judges saying there's no evidence that DOGE has done any "targeted snooping" or exposed personal information. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Original article source: Supreme Court rules DOGE can access Social Security information
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
US Supreme Court rejects Republican election-rule challenge in Pennsylvania
By Andrew Chung (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court passed up a chance to give politicians more power over how federal elections are conducted, declining on Friday to hear a Republican challenge to a Pennsylvania judicial decision requiring the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters who make mistakes on their mail-in ballots. The justices turned away an appeal by the Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Pennsylvania of a decision by Pennsylvania's top court on provisional ballots that the plaintiffs said ran afoul of legislature-crafted voting rules, violating the U.S. Constitution's election-related provisions. The dispute returned to the Supreme Court after the justices, on the eve of the November 2024 presidential election, rejected the emergency bid by the Republicans to block tallying the provisional ballots. The Republicans objected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's October ruling in favor of two Butler County voters who sought to have their provisional ballots counted after their mail-in ballots were rejected during that state's 2024 presidential primary election for lacking secrecy envelopes. Election rules in states like Pennsylvania that often play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of U.S. presidential elections are a particularly sensitive issue. Republican President Donald Trump prevailed in Pennsylvania last November, but lost the state in 2020 to his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, who won the presidency that year. The case follows a major 2023 Supreme Court ruling that allows the justices to second-guess state courts if they undermine the power that the Constitution gives state legislatures to craft election rules. That 6-3 ruling, which upheld a North Carolina state court's decision that invalidated a Republican-drawn congressional map as unlawfully disadvantaging Democrats, also rejected a more extreme theory advanced by many Republicans and conservatives that would have removed any role of state courts and state constitutions in regulating federal elections. The ruling, however, stopped short of announcing a legal test for determining when state courts have ventured too far in "arrogating to themselves" a legislature's power. In the Pennsylvania case, Republicans asked the Supreme Court to answer that question, contending that the state supreme court's ruling violated the Constitution's elections provisions, including that the "times, places and manner" of federal elections "shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof." Provisional ballots generally protect voters from being excluded from the voting process if their eligibility is uncertain on Election Day. The vote is counted once officials confirm eligibility. Republicans intervened to defend Butler County's decision not to count the ballots from these voters, saying Pennsylvania's election law does not allow provisional ballots to be counted if a mail-in ballot was received on time by a county board of elections. Democrats intervened on the side of the voters, contending that if a mail-in ballot is defective and cannot be counted, that person has not yet voted and a provisional ballot must be counted. A divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court last October sided with the voters, saying that provisional ballots prevent double voting while protecting voters' right to have one vote counted. Friday's action by the court was unexpected. The court had planned to release it on Monday along with its other regularly scheduled orders, but a software glitch on Friday prematurely sent email notifications concerning the court's decision in the case. "As a result, the court is issuing that order list now," said court spokesperson Patricia McCabe. It is not the first time the court has inadvertently disclosed action in sensitive cases. Last year, an apparent draft of a ruling in a case involving emergency abortion access in Idaho was briefly uploaded to the court's website before being taken down. That disclosure represented an embarrassment for the top U.S. judicial body, coming two years after the draft of a blockbuster ruling rolling back abortion rights was leaked in advance.
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge to Pennsylvania ruling about provisional ballots
Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge to Pennsylvania ruling about provisional ballots Show Caption Hide Caption Supreme Court hears arguments on judges' block on Trump birthright EO The justices heard arguments on whether its ok for judges to universally block President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order. WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on June 6 rejected a Republican challenge to a Pennsylvania court's ruling on provisional ballots, a case that could have restricted how much leeway state courts have to interpret federal election rules. During the 2024 election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said voters should be able to cast provisional ballots if they failed to encase an absentee ballot in the required secrecy sleeve. State and national Republicans argued that would give voters an 'unauthorized do-over' for 'naked ballots' or for other mistakes on mail-in votes. And they said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision usurped the power the Constitution gives state legislatures to set federal election rules. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court declined the GOP's emergency request to intervene as ballots were being cast. The Republican National Committee said the justices should decide the issue now because they can do so without worrying whether their decision would affect an ongoing election. Related: Supreme Court to decide if challenge to Illinois' grace period for mail-in ballots can proceed Pennsylvania Democrats countered that the 2024 ruling by the state supreme court was consistent with the text of state election law and with the intent of the legislators who set the rules. There's no good reason, Democrats said, for the Supreme Court to review what was a routine interpretation of a state law. Getting involved would invite appeals in 'any and every state-law election case," lawyers for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party told the justices. 'That is not a regime the Court should foster,' they wrote. The case is the second about election law the court agreed to hear next term. They will also decide whether a GOP congressman can challenge Illinois' decision to count mail-in ballots that are cast, but not received, before the end of Election Day.
