Kentucky Supreme Court set to weigh statewide abortion bans

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The future of abortion rights in Kentucky reaches a defining moment Tuesday when the state's highest court hears arguments over a sweeping abortion ban put in place by the Republican-led legislature.

The case before Kentucky's Supreme Court is the first legal test since voters in Kentucky and three other states signaled their support for abortion rights in last week's midterm election. Kentuckians rejected a ballot measure that would have denied abortion rights in the state's Constitution.

“Its defeat –- at the least –- keeps alive the plaintiffs’ claim that the Kentucky Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose,” University of Louisville law professor Samuel Marcosson said ahead of the court hearing. “The outcome doesn’t establish that there is such a right; that remains a question for the court depending on their view of the scope of the Kentucky constitutional right to privacy.”

The Kentucky justices will review a challenge to the state's trigger law that banned nearly all abortions, taking effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June by the U.S. Supreme Court. Approved in 2019, the law carved out narrow exceptions to save a pregnant woman’s life or to prevent disabling injury. There are no exceptions for rape or incest victims.

What impact, if any, the anti-abortion measure's defeat will have on the Kentucky court was a matter for intense debate in the days leading up to the hearing.

Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, expressed hope that the state's highest court "will listen to the will of the people and know that the people have rejected extremism and rule accordingly.”

His chief nemesis, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, whose office is defending the statewide ban in court, continued to claim there's “no right to abortion...