20 state coalition files brief supporting Kentucky AG’s efforts to defend abortion ban law

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WYMT) - Attorneys general from 20 states are backing Kentucky’s top law enforcement official’s efforts to defend House Bill 454, which bans live dismemberment abortions, before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The General Assembly passed the legislation during the 2018 session and it was signed into law by then-Governor Matt Bevin. The law bans the Dilation and Evacuation procedure (D&E) on a living unborn child.

The group, led by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, filed an amicus brief Wednesday to support Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s effort to defend the law to the nation’s highest court.

Cameron’s team argued in defense of the law on behalf of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) earlier this year before the U.S. Court of Appeals, who upheld a permanent injunction against the law.

The new brief argues the lower court’s ruling to allow Cameron to defend the law “allowed the unilateral capitulation of a single unelected official to be the final word on whether a duly enacted law of Kentucky would be invalidated (and thus de facto repealed)…even though another Kentucky official—its Attorney General, who has unquestioned authority to represent Kentucky in federal court—sought to defend the constitutionality of the statute on the merits.”

You can read the brief below:

20 state coalition amicus brief by WYMT Television on Scribd