Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron Exploiting COVID-19 Crisis to Push Anti-Choice Agenda
For Immediate Release: March 27, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
Today Kentucky joined a growing list of states moving to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to push an anti-choice agenda and roll back access to abortion, prioritizing an extreme ideological agenda over medical expertise and science.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued a statement this morning calling on the Acting Secretary for the Cabinet of Health and Family Services to certify that abortion providers in Kentucky are violating the ban on “elective” medical procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic by continuing to provide abortion care. Ilyse Hogue, NARAL Pro-Choice America President, said:
“The radical right has been working for decades to end the legal right to abortion—no matter the cost—and now they are using COVID-19 to achieve that goal.
“As we face this national emergency, we must centralize sound science and medical experts in guiding decision making and not allow the individuals driven by ideology to craft policy to meet their beliefs over public welfare.
“The medical community is clear and unified: Abortion care is time-sensitive and essential healthcare. They should be allowed to continue their work based on medicine and not arbitrary policy. The health and well-being of all Americans are at risk. Allowing ideology to trump science in this moment imperils everyone and sets a terrifying precedent as we face this national crisis.”
Attorney General Cameron’s statement follows yesterday’s state senate hearing on a bill that would expand Cameron’s power to regulate abortion clinics, which was amended to specifically empower him in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Earlier this month, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed a separate anti-choice measure that would seek to pass an amendment declaring that nothing in the state constitution guarantees a right to abortion.
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NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all. For more than 50 years, NARAL has worked to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. Since 1969, NARAL has made history, grown to over 2.5 million members, and met the moments that have defined this fight with action, power and freedom. In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”