Legislation aimed at easing Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban by creating limited exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest has been introduced in the GOP-dominated House.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Legislation aimed at easing Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban by creating limited exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest was introduced Monday in the GOP-dominated House, as lawmakers wrangle with an issue at the forefront of last year’s campaign for governor.

Republican state Rep. Ken Fleming filed the measure on the last day that new House bills could be introduced in this year’s 60-day session. The bill’s prospects are uncertain, with House Speaker David Osborne saying the chamber’s GOP supermajority has not discussed any particular abortion bill.

Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban has been in place since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The state’s so-called trigger law took effect, banning abortions except when carried out to save the mother’s life or to prevent a disabling injury. It does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

Fleming’s proposal would change that by making abortions legal in cases of rape and incest if done no later than six weeks after the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period, according to a statement describing the bill. The measure also would allow an abortion to remove a dead fetus and in cases of a lethal fetal anomaly, meaning the fetus wouldn’t survive after birth.

  • @MagicShel
    36•4 months ago

    Rape exceptions are tricky. They sound good, but frequently the details make them untenable. If all it takes is an assertion by the woman, then every abortion just becomes a rape abortion. But if you have to formally accuse them, how does that process play out? How quickly? How effectively can someone force her to give birth anyway just by slow-walking the paperwork?

    • Flying Squid
      12•4 months ago

      Women will have to prove they’re raped, which will then require an invasive examination for things like genital tearing and a police report.

      Many women who get raped do not have the psychological fortitude to do that. Many women don’t even want to report a rape because of how traumatic it was. Until Roe was ended, they didn’t have to. They could just go and get an abortion, no questions asked.

      • @MagicShel
        7•4 months ago

        Yes but also even more. Not every rape is violent. If tearing is required, I’d suggest the vast majority of rapes wouldn’t even count.

        Completely agree with your second paragraph. No notes.

        • Flying Squid
          3•4 months ago

          Yes, you’re right. I should have clarified that the examination might not even find any evidence of rape even if it happened.

    • HopeOfTheGunblade
      10•4 months ago

      I mean, six weeks from last period, I don’t think that running the paperwork at an accelerated speed for bureaucracy is going to make that cutoff.

    • @[email protected]
      9•4 months ago

      The exceptions are bullshit, bureaucracy doesn’t speed up just because a person who is pregnant says they were raped or a victim of incest or their life was in danger. It just makes it seem like they are protecting rape and incest victims while really doing nothing, that Texas mother whose life was at risk still couldn’t get an abortion. She had to leave the state to get it done.

      The speed of bureaucracy just means more children being born since the court will be dragging everything out.

    • @[email protected]
      -11•4 months ago

      How many women would say they were raped so they could get an abortion and let a person get convicted over it? There’s tons of stories of teens winding up pregnant and telling their parents they were raped rather than facing what their parents would do/think of them.