Beshear campaign airs new ad ripping Cameron’s abortion stance

Abortion hadn’t really been a topic of discussion for Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear or GOP gubernatorial nominee Attorney General Daniel Cameron in their race for the state’s top job this year — until a Beshear ad blasting Cameron for his position on the subject aired on Friday.

The ad zooms in on Cameron’s support for Kentucky’s trigger ban on abortion, in particular highlighting its lack of exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

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 nine-year-old rape survivor should be forced to give birth. 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,” White said.

A Beshear campaign spokesperson told the Herald-Leader that the ad would air on television statewide.

Cameron’s campaign released a statement in response to the ad calling it a “desperate attack,” and pointed to Beshear’s opposition to several pieces of anti-abortion rights legislation.

“Andy Beshear stands with Joe Biden and the most extreme wing of the Democrat Party on abortion. Andy Beshear supports making it easier for minor children to get an abortion without their parents’ knowledge... Daniel Cameron is the pro-life candidate in this race and will work as Governor to build a culture of life,” the statement read.

Those bills include a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which included a provision that a consenting parent or guardian should attempt notify another parent or guardian if their child is seeking an abortion.

Cameron was very vocal in his support for the GOP-backed trigger law banning nearly all abortions in the state, particularly during the crowded GOP primary that he won handily, but that’s become less of a talking point during the general election. The ban kicked into effect following the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in Dobbs mid-2022, which overturned nearly 50 years of federal abortion protections established by Roe v. Wade.

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 that 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.

In addition to the ad, the Beshear campaign sent out an email to supporters, signed by Beshear, emphasizing the ad’s main points and noting that Cameron running mate Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, voted against an amendment that would have added the exceptions for rape and incest to the law.

“As attorney general, I worked to get justice for survivors of some of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Kentuckians need to know how extreme and dangerous Daniel Cameron’s views are,” Beshear wrote in the email.

Neither the email nor the ad itself ever says the word “abortion.”

Support for anti-abortion rights cause has long been a winning issue for Republicans in more conservative states like Kentucky, but the GOP’s worse-than-expected performance in 2022 has led many to conclude that the matter is now less politically helpful for Republicans.

In 2022, Kentucky voters rejected a Republican proposal to amend the Kentucky Constitution in a way that would bar courts from interpreting a right to an abortion in the document. The amendment lost by five percentage points.

During that election season, the pro-abortion rights side took the approach of making the amendment a referendum on the state’s trigger ban, which it blasted as too draconian and highlighted its lack of exceptions for rape or incest. Republican House GOP Whip Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, filed a bill to add those exceptions to the ban this past legislative session, but his bill was never assigned to committee.

The commonwealth’s trigger law prohibits all abortion except in medical emergencies that threaten a pregnant person’s life — an arbitrary standard health care providers have decried as not evidence-based. As a result, women needing medically-recommended terminations have been forced to go out of state for that routine medical care. Kentucky’s fetal heartbeat law — also known as a six-week ban — bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity begins, usually around six weeks. Health care providers who perform abortions in violation of these bans can be charged with a felony. Both laws were passed in 2019 during the GOP caucuses’ third term in full control of the state legislature.

Latest on the lawsuit

Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center sued the state last summer after both laws took effect, arguing their unconstitutionality. After a Jefferson Circuit judge found merit in their case and granted a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of both laws, Cameron vigorously appealed.

The “alleged harm here — an infringement on the right to abortion — is nonexistent,” Cameron wrote in his appeal last year.

After the Kentucky Court of Appeals granted his appeal, reversing that lower court’s injunction, the case made its way to the Kentucky Supreme Court. In February, the high court in a split decision declined to reinstate the injunction, which kept both bans in place. A majority of justices said both providers lacked necessary constitutional standing to sue on behalf of patients directly impacted by both bans; abortion providers needed to demonstrate concrete examples of harm — “genuine obstacle or hindrance” — the laws caused their patients.

This standard means abortion providers must bring forward women who are actively pregnant, in need of an abortion, and actively being denied that care — a short window lasting days or weeks. Because it’s a uniquely challenging standard to meet for a number of factors, Planned Parenthood and EMW asked a judge to dismiss their lawsuit in June but vowed to bring a new case once they found necessary plaintiffs.

The primary question brought by the initial lawsuit — does the Kentucky constitution protect an individual’s right to access abortion — has still yet to be answered.