Supreme Court Allows Kentucky Attorney General to Continue Eleventh-Hour Effort to Revive an Abortion Ban

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court issued a ruling today in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center that will allow Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to continue his eleventh-hour attempt to revive an abortion ban that two courts have already held unconstitutional. In its ruling, the court did not address the constitutionality of the underlying abortion ban, and instead only allowed Attorney General Cameron to join the case and attempt to overturn the decisions striking down the law. The underlying abortion ban will remain blocked as the case proceeds before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

“Politicians in Kentucky are working overtime to force people to continue pregnancies against their will, instead of doing what is best for the people they are supposed to serve,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and lead counsel for EMW Women’s Surgical Center. “And it is not just in Kentucky. In Texas, most people are already being blocked from getting an abortion — a nightmare that could soon become reality for nearly half of this country, as the Supreme Court seems poised to gut or overturn Roe v. Wade. But this fight is not over and we’ll continue doing everything in our power to protect each person’s ability to get an abortion, no matter where they live.”

The underlying case challenges a Kentucky law passed in 2018 that bans dilation and evacuation (D&E), the standard procedure for abortions after 15 weeks. The law is one of the more than 560 abortion bans and restrictions signed into law in the last decade.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Kentucky, and the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers brought this case on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C., on behalf of the clinic, its staff, and its patients, as well as two physicians who provide care at EMW, on behalf of themselves and their patients.

The case page for Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/cameron-v-emw-womens-surgical-center

Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center is a part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket, which can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/defending-our-rights/court-battles/supreme-court

The case page for the underlying abortion ban challenge, EMW Women’s Surgical Center v. Friedlander (formerly EMW Women’s Surgical Center v. Meier), can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/emw-womens-surgical-center-psc-v-meier-ban-safe-abortion-procedure

The Supreme Court docket for the case can be found here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20-601.html