Why Planned Parenthood is entering KY governor’s race to oppose Cameron over abortion

Nearly a year after abortion rights activists scored a big win at the polls, the Kentucky chapter of the nation’s largest abortion provider has plans to get involved in a “pretty robust” way to support Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

Beshear is facing a closely watched and expensive re-election bid this year against GOP challenger Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Planned Parenthood Action Kentucky, a political action committee (PAC) that has played a small role in past campaigns, is backing Beshear in the 2023 race because of Cameron’s record against abortion rights. As attorney general, Cameron has championed the state’s near-total ban on abortions, which notably lacks exceptions for rape or incest.

Kentucky state director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Tamarra Wieder said her organization hopes to build off the success of Protect Kentucky Access, which led a victorious “no’‘ campaign against Constitutional Amendment 2 last November, four months after abortion was outlawed in Kentucky. The largely GOP-backed proposal sought to change the state constitution to make clear abortion, or the state funding of an abortion, was not a protected right. It failed by a five-point margin.

That question was presented to voters as the constitutionality of Kentucky’s abortion bans were being challenged in court by the state’s two remaining outpatient abortion providers: Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center. Throughout that process, Cameron relentlessly defended both laws, which he continues to insist are constitutional and necessary to protect “unborn lives.”

“Cameron has done everything he can to obstruct access to abortion so we will do everything we can to make sure that Cameron is not elected,” Wieder said Monday.

Wieder added that she believes Protect Kentucky Access’ success is proof positive that abortion rights are a “uniting issue.” When asked about what kind of messaging the group will pursue, Wieder referenced Cameron’s recent decision to co-sign a letter from GOP attorneys general seeking to retain the option to access the medical information of Kentuckians who leave the state for reproductive health care services, including abortions.

Though the number of abortions provided in Kentucky has plummeted since the near-total ban became law, preliminary, piecemeal data shows that Kentuckians have traveled out of state in droves this year to get abortions, the Herald-Leader reported last week.

“We have been in an abortion desert for over a year. People are suffering and having to flee the state,” Wieder said. “We don’t know what’s to come if Cameron claims the governor’s seat. We’ll definitely be hitting hard on his record – he has a long and storied record of attacking abortion access.”

Beshear, on the other hand, has vetoed multiple GOP-backed bills seeking to restrict abortion access. The governor has said he agrees with the previous standard set by Roe v. Wade, before it was overturned last year. For nearly 50 years, federal protections allowed abortions up to the point of viability, or when a fetus can survive on its own outside the womb.

During passage of another anti-abortion rights bill last April, House Bill 3, which restricts mail-order abortion medication, mandates statewide abortion reporting and monitoring requirements, and imposes a 15-week ban on abortions (current law now imposes a six-week ban), Beshear derided lawmakers for again not including a rape and incest exception.

“Rape and incest are violent crimes,” Beshear wrote in his 2022 veto message. “Victims of these crimes should have options, not be further scarred through a process that exposes them to more harm from their rapists or that treats them like offenders, themselves.”

Like with the trigger law and six-week ban, Cameron also defended the constitutionality of House Bill 3 in court, despite a contrary opinion from sixth circuit appellate judge. Last June, less than a month before the state’s trigger law locked in place, Cameron sued the Cabinet for not letting him enforce House Bill 3.

Though abortion had taken a backseat politically to start Kentucky’s governor’s race – Democrats are usually hesitant to forward the issue in a conservative-leaning state like Kentucky – Beshear’s campaign this month broke the seal on general election discussion of the issue with an ad featuring a Louisville prosecutor bashing Cameron for not supporting rape and incest exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

After 2022, when a predicted “red wave” across the country did not materialize as strongly as some predicted, Republicans have grown more cautious in pushing the issue as a political winner.

Last gubernatorial cycle, the group spent $177,000, with the largest chunk of those expenses going towards digital advertising. That was a relatively small amount in a race that saw more than $15 million spent total, but this year’s effort, Wieder said, will be “robust” and “will surprise a lot of Kentuckians.”

According to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (KREF), the PAC had raised just over $215,000 as of Tuesday. $200,000 of that total came from Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc., the political arm of Planned Parenthood’s national organization.

Weider added that the PAC will support candidates for other constitutional offices – Kentucky elects its entire slate of statewide constitutional officers this year – but has yet to endorse in those races.

Where does abortion access stand in Kentucky?

Abortion has been largely illegal and criminalized in Kentucky since June 2022, save for a brief period when a Jefferson Circuit judge temporarily blocked both bans from being enforced.

Under current law, abortions are only permitted in medical emergencies that threaten a pregnant person’s life. This standard has forced women with nonviable pregnancies that don’t threaten their health to travel to out-of-state facilities to have their pregnancies terminated. Health care providers who perform abortions in violation of state law can be charged with a felony.

Since Kentucky’s bans became law, hundreds of women have sought this type of health care out of state. Between January and July of this year, just 13 abortions were reported to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services – a 99.5% drop from 2021.

Republicans have stayed relatively mum on whether these laws need to be amended to include allowances for when someone is made pregnant by rape or incest, or whether the list of acceptable medical exceptions needs to be broadened to account for nonviable pregnancies.

During the General Assembly’s legislative session earlier this year, Republican House GOP Whip Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, filed a bill to add those exceptions, but it was never assigned to committee.