In apparent reversal, Cameron says he’d support rape, incest exceptions to KY abortion ban

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Monday morning “there’s no question” that, if elected governor, he would sign a law adding exceptions for rape and incest to Kentucky’s near-total ban on abortion.

The Republican nominee’s statement, made on the Tony & Dwight show on NewsRadio 840 WHAS, is a significant departure from his past position, which is to support the commonwealth’s ban as-is.

Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade last year, Kentucky’s trigger ban took effect, criminalizing abortion except when a pregnant person’s life is threatened. Concurrently, a fetal heartbeat law, or six-week ban, also became enforceable. That law outlaws abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks of pregnancy.

The combination of both laws has led to a virtual elimination of abortion in Kentucky.

“If our legislature was to bring legislation before me that provided exceptions for rape and incest, I would sign that legislation,” Cameron said on the show. “There’s no question about that.”

The Herald-Leader asked the Cameron campaign about why and when the nominee changed his position, or if he’d proactively encourage the legislature to pass a bill with exceptions. The campaign issued a statement that did not specifically address many of those questions, but rehashed Cameron’s words while reaffirming support for the current law as well as the openness to supporting a change to its exceptions.

“Daniel Cameron is the pro-life candidate for governor and supports the Human Life Protection Act. But if the situation in Kentucky were to change and the legislature brought him a bill to add exceptions for rape and incest, he would, of course, sign it,” spokesperson Courtney Norris said in a statement.

Norris also contrasted Cameron’s position with Beshear, whom she called an “extremist” on the issue.

The radio show’s hosts asked Cameron about a recent ad from Gov. Andy Beshear’s re-election campaign, which slammed Cameron’s support for those bans.

In the ad, Erin White, a prosecutor in Louisville who most recently worked at the Jefferson County Attorney’s office, highlights her experience going after serious criminals before calling Cameron’s position on abortion unconscionable.

“Daniel Cameron thinks a 9-year-old rape survivor should be forced to give birth,” White said. “Nobody — no child — should ever have to go through that. Cameron believes rapists have more rights than their victims. That’s extreme and that’s dangerous.”

Cameron said he’s going to make sure Kentucky has a culture of life.

“But the things that have been said in these ads, they are shameful. If someone rapes a child, we are going to go after them with the full force of the law,” Cameron said, before then making his remark about supporting exceptions.

He then continued: “The Beshear administration and the Beshear campaign are running a smear campaign against me, but it’s not going to work because people see through the trash that they are trying to put out in television.”

Alex Floyd, spokesperson for the Beshear campaign, said Cameron has been clear in his support for Kentucky’s “extreme abortion ban with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.”

“He has repeated that position in public statements, questionnaires, press interviews, and debates,” Floyd said in a statement. “As attorney general, Cameron repeatedly defended this extreme law with its lack of exceptions in front of multiple courts, including the Kentucky Supreme Court. Either recent polling numbers have changed Cameron’s core beliefs, or he is lying to Kentuckians now that he is seven weeks from an election.”

Beshear has regularly made hay of Republicans’ position on exceptions for rape or incest as “too extreme,” but has spoken relatively little of his own position on abortion rights. When pressed, he’s said he believes Roe, which allowed abortions to take place up until viability which occurs late in the second trimester of pregnancy, got it “generally right.”

“This ultimately should be a rare, but legal procedure. There are reasonable restrictions that could be placed on it. I’ve always been against late-term procedures,” Beshear said last year.

The radio show’s hosts also asked Cameron about another recent controversy that has surrounded his campaign: his responses to the Northern Kentucky Right to Life candidate questionnaire.

The survey in question, published in April, falsely equates abortion medication with emergency contraception and “the so-called ‘standard birth control pill.’” Critics have taken Cameron’s affirmative answers to mean he supports criminalizing birth control because he responded “yes” to a question asking if he’d support making it a “criminal offense” to perform or assist with an abortion.

Cameron, once again, called his critics “completely absurd.”

“Again, it is completely absurd,” Cameron said on the show. “I support birth control. I support contraception. Again, this is a smear campaign by Andy Beshear because they know that they’re going to lose this race, and so they’re clinging to and trying to do whatever they can.”

In response to questions from the Herald-Leader Friday, Cameron was clear that he is against taxpayer funds — including Medicaid — paying for contraception.

When asked about adding exceptions to Kentucky’s ban, Cameron has repeatedly parroted his support for the current laws in recent months.

During a March debate ahead of the Republican primary, each candidate was explicitly asked whether they supported adding rape and incest exceptions. Cameron dodged the question, saying, instead, “Well, I support the current law.”

A May Republican debate brought a nearly identical answer from Cameron. He was asked twice for a yes or no answers about exceptions, and both times reiterated his support for the Human Life Protection Act — the trigger law — and “the exception therein.”

The only other time Cameron’s office has publicly hinted at potentially endorsing the addition of rape and incest exceptions to the state’s abortion bans was during oral arguments in the case challenging that ban before the Kentucky Supreme Court last November.

Cameron has consistently championed Kentucky’s strict abortion restrictions. Last year’s court case, brought by Kentucky’s two remaining outpatient abortion clinics, argued that Kentucky’s bans violated an individual’s right to privacy and bodily autonomy under the Kentucky Constitution.

As the high court’s justices questioned Solicitor General Matthew Kuhn, who defended both laws, Kuhn said it was within the court’s power to add rape and incest exceptions in their ruling in the case. The question before the court was specifically whether to reinstate a lower court’s injunction temporarily blocking both laws.

“If the court’s concern is about the lack of a rape or incest exception in our abortion law, I can envision an opinion that say the equities in those narrow circumstances are quite different, because of the criminality, because of the involuntariness,” Kuhn said. “I do think the court would be well within its rights to not affirm the injunction but narrow it to apply only in those narrow circumstances of rape or incest.”

Then-Chief Justice John Minton questioned this logic. The General Assembly had refused to adopt an amendment adding rape and incest exceptions during House Bill 3 in 2022, a separate bill restricting abortion access. An amendment to add those exceptions to the trigger law, itself, also failed.

“I’m not going to hide the ball,” Kuhn said. “There have been various votes throughout the years.”

He then assured the high court there was a plan in the works for a bill to be filed during the 2023 legislative session to that end, to amend the trigger law retroactively.

“My understanding is that a bill including rape and incest exceptions is going to be pre-filed,” Kuhn said. “I would urge the court to let our General Assembly address this issue.”

During this year’s session, a bill was filed to that end by GOP Whip Jason Nemes, R-Louisville. It called not only for adding rape and incest exceptions, but also exceptions for fetal abnormalities incompatible with life. It was the only attempt by the political party in power to add exceptions.

The bill was never assigned a committee.

In response to Cameron’s seemingly new public stance, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates questioned which version of his recent statements on abortion are true. The organization’s leadership operates a political action committee that has raised more than $200,000 to message against Cameron and other down-ballot candidates, citing his record on abortion.

“Is Cameron lying when he signs pledges to ban birth control and abortion access, or is he lying now that he is down in the polls,” the organization asked Monday night in a statement. “Abortion is a winning issue, and that’s what Cameron is banking on in November.”

Herald-Leader reporter Austin Horn contributed to this report.