EMILYs List Statement on Kentucky’s Effort to Ban All In-State Abortions

For Immediate Release
April 14, 2022

EMILYs List Statement on Kentucky’s Effort to Ban All In-State Abortions 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the Kentucky legislature overrode Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto on an restrictive abortion ban (H.B. 3), allowing it to go into effect immediately. Clinics have been forced to stop administering abortion services in Kentucky, saying that the law makes it impossible to continue providing these essential health services. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List condemns the Kentucky legislature for passing an abortion ban into law that pushes neccessary health care out of reach for thousands of people. We recognize that this is part of a coordinated attack by anti-abortion Republicans to limit reproductive freedom across the country, but time and time again we are enraged by their blatant disregard for their constituents. Republican lawmakers across the country are attacking the constitutional right to abortion and their colleagues in Kentucky have effectively ended abortion care in the state.

“Every American deserves to make the decisions for their bodies, healths, and futures. At EMILYs List, we understand the importance of electing candidates who refuse to back down to anti-abortion lawmakers as they attempt to limit the bodily autonomy of their constituents. We know that the way to advance reproductive freedom is to stand with the Democratic pro-choice women at the forefront of this fight.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.