Somerset pro-choice protestors turn out to Fountain Square

Jul. 5—A Somerset group spent part of Monday standing at the Fountain Square protesting the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that reversed the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision and left abortion rights up to individual states.

Kentucky is one of the many states whose legislatures enacted so-called "trigger laws" in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision, making abortion illegal. That law has been blocked temporarily, but it is unclear how long a final decision will take.

The organizer for the Somerset protest, Serena Courtney, said Monday's protest was put together within the last week. Around a dozen people turned out to stand on the Square in black outfits and holding signs saying things like "My body, my choice" and "No forced pregnancies."

Courtney and other attendees said they had mostly received support from those passing by. Several cars honked their horns as they drove past, and many drivers gave thumbs-up or other gestures showing their solidarity with the group.

The protesters said they also had people stop and give them food or water to help them combat the day's 90-degree heat.

They said they had had a little bit of pushback from pro-life people as well, although not nearly as much. Protesters said they had one woman stop in her car and yell "obscenities" at them, but she didn't get out of her vehicle.

Courtney started a Facebook group a year ago called Pro-Choice Women's March! (Somerset, Ky.). It didn't gather much traction, she said, until after the Supreme Court decision.

The group quickly put together Monday's protest, but Courtney said the plan was to hold a bigger one at a later time.

She and others at the protest said that they felt it was important to protest the Supreme Court's decision.

"If you don't like abortion, that's perfectly fine. I'm not saying it should be mandated by any means," Courtney said.

"But at the same time, I'm more worried about the women who have already died from this. I understand not wanting abortion to be a means for contraception, because it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be used as a form of birth control by any means. But there are people who are saying if you have an ectopic pregnancy, or if you're raped or if it's incestuous, it doesn't matter. We're not going to help with that."

"It's not safe," protester Nevada Whitlow said about the decision. "Making abortion illegal is not going to stop abortion. Women will still be getting abortions, it will just be less safe. Women are going to die."

"It's a woman's body, so what goes on in their body is their choice," said protester Sam Gibson. "Just as nobody can force you to give up an organ to somebody, even if you're the only person on the planet that can save somebody's life, you do not legally have to give anything."

The same applies to someone who has passed away, he said. If that person was not an organ donor, the government cannot touch their body or do anything to it without their previous permission.

Gibson also pointed out that while the state's trigger law doesn't outright ban abortions in cases where the pregnancy isn't viable — such as miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies — it makes it much harder to carry out.

He said it wasn't right to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term that could harm them, or make them deal with the side effects of pregnancy.

"A lot of times now, before someone can get lifesaving treatment, doctors may not be able to do anything without speaking to lawyers. There have been many recent situations where people have almost died because a doctor has had to go to a lawyer first to see if they are even able to perform the procedure," he said.

Courtney also pointed out that pregnancies are not allowed to be terminated due to rape or incest — no matter the age.

Both she and Gibson talked about recent cases in which girls as young as 10 or 11 years old had become pregnant due to rape.

An 11-year-old, Courtney said, is not legally able to smoke, drink, vote or enlist in the military, but if they become pregnant they are legally required to give birth to that child.

"And that's not fair to anybody," she said.

"... I have been sexually assaulted in my life, and if I was living in this day and age, and that had happened to me, and I would have gotten pregnant, my life would be completely different right now. I would not have been able to do half the things I wanted to do. I might not even be alive.

"I want to stand out here for the people who have already died or who are getting their miscarriages questioned right now," she continued. "There are women who have miscarriages, and if they don't immediately go to the police and talk to them about it, then they're saying, 'Well, what if it was on purpose?' And no woman wants to hear that after a miscarriage."

"I believe in the movement, and I think around here there's not as much support and awareness as there needs to be," said protester Draven Lockard.

He said that as a man, he felt it was important to speak out and support his female friends.

"I have women in my life who are obviously affected by this," he said.

Lockard also said he worried that this Supreme Court decision would open a door that would allow the courts to reconsider birth control options and other laws governing rights.

Whitlow agreed, pointing to Justice Clarence Thomas' remarks in the Roe v. Wade decision that the Supreme Court should reexamine other cases, including allowing same-sex marriage, the 1965 decision allowing married couples to use contraceptives, and the decision which overturned a Texas law which criminalized gay sex.

"It's old thinking, and we're not in the 1950s anymore," Whitlow said. "It's 2022. We've moved on, and this only hurts younger people like me and all my friends."