HB451 merged with SB9 at last moment of 2020 Legislative Session

A lot of information on Transfer Agreements is on this website, including a blog series that questions how Andy Beshear as AG filed an Amicus brief on behalf of EMW and PP. Particularly when it was his duty to defend Kentucky law. ?

Will our current AG Daniel Cameron sue Gov. Beshear for issuing the illegal license to abort?

It is well to pursue lawbreakers in a step-by-step manner as KRS 15.241 and HB451 prescribe. HB451 ended up in the House Rules Committee at the end of the 2020 Legislative Session, however its language was merged into the SB9 bill at the 11th hour of the Session. Many news stories today are reporting this advance.

Insert this!

For the AG to sue the Governor is a huge and costly step. AG Beshear sued Gov. Bevin five times and won two of the cases: He blocked the governor's $18 million cut to Kentucky universities in 2016 and blocked the administration's pension reform bill in 2018. Bevin won the teacher “sick-out” case, but when Beshear became Governor, he reversed the decision.

Most Kentuckians do not want their AG and Governor to be embroiled in court cases on different sides. Ouch. They would prefer the HB451 method.

Contingencies

Most pro-lifers would understand that the TA case may be decided at any time, and if it upholds Judge Stivers’ verdict, then the clinics will not need TAs.

Possibly the Appeals Court is waiting to learn if the Supreme Court will uphold Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges within 30 miles of a local hospital, and requires doctors who perform more than five abortions a year to maintain proper licensing.

This case further mandates that informed consent protections and reporting of anonymous data and complications apply to to RU486 chemical abortions, just as to surgical abortion, and it clarifies that physicians in both private offices and licensed outpatient abortion facilities owe women the same informed consent protections and reporting of public health data and abortion complications, whether the abortion is surgical or an RU-486 drug-induced abortion.

Kentucky already requires reporting of RU486 abortions and informed consent protections, and does not permit abortions to be performed in private offices nor in public hospitals unless to save the life of the mother.

The tragedy of this long wait for court decisions is the loss of precious and innocent humans who deserved legal protection. So, don’t be surprised if AG Cameron decides to make an issue of the missing TAs as well as the COVID-19 violation of the Governor’s healthcare mandate even if SB9 does not become law. And, don’t be surprised if the Sixth Circuit Court decides in favor of Kentucky’s appeal before SCOTUS rules on the Louisiana case.

An Aside:

Current Kentucky abortion licensing requires that:
An employee or volunteer of the facility while afflicted with any infected wounds, boils, sores, or an acute respiratory infection or any other contagious disease or illness shall not work in any capacity in which there is a likelihood of that person transmitting disease to other individuals.

Since COVID19 carriers may be asymptomatic, this is yet another aspect of licensing law being broken.