Election ’22: Protect Kentucky Access says vote ‘No’ on Amendment 2 — it’s too extreme for Kentucky

Amendment 2 is too extreme for Kentucky. On November 8, we must vote No.

On November 8, Kentuckians will be asked to fundamentally change our state’s constitution and allow politicians to ban all access to abortion with no exceptions, including in cases of rape, incest, and when the health and life of the mother is at risk. This is a dangerous act of government overreach, and to protect our neighbors, friends, and family members, on November 8, we must vote No on Amendment 2.

Abortion has always been a hard topic. Many Kentuckians would not choose to have one themselves. But most of us know someone who, at some point, was left with only bad choices, finding themselves in a position we would never want to be in, and one we would never judge. Most Kentuckians know someone who badly wanted a child but found out theirs would never make it to term. Most Kentuckians know someone who miscarried, but needed medical intervention to prevent sepsis or other complications – medical interventions that could be banned if Amendment 2 passes. Most Kentuckians know a good person left in the hardest of circumstances, and almost all Kentuckians have told us, over and over, that these choices are between women, their families, and their doctors.

What we are threatened with in Kentucky has already happened in other states, with disastrous consequences. A ten year old child in Ohio was forced to travel to another state to end a pregnancy after she was raped. A woman in Louisiana whose child had heart-wrenching and fatal abnormalities was not allowed to end her pregnancy at home, with her own doctors and in her own hospital, and was forced to travel to New York for proper medical care. Just last week more than 100 women went before the Louisiana state legislature and begged politicians to include needed exceptions to a total abortion ban on their special exemptions list. That cannot and must not happen here in Kentucky. The right thing to do on the worst day of our lives is not up to politicians. It is up to us.

Over the past few months since this amendment was introduced, the Protect Kentucky Access coalition has gone from one corner of Kentucky to the other. We have reached voters in 116 counties, and we will reach voters in all 120 of our state’s counties by election day. Everywhere we go, every town, every neighborhood, every side street, we hear the same message: an abortion ban with no exceptions is too extreme, and it is too dangerous. Across the state, Kentuckians have told us that they believe – that we all believe – that complicated medical decisions must be left to women, their families, their doctors, and their faith.

Over the past week, our elected officials have offered a different viewpoint, one our friends and neighbors have told us repeatedly they do not agree with. Kentucky politicians have published op-eds and held press conferences saying that legislators, not doctors, should decide who needs medical care. They have said that people who don’t know women and their families should have the right to make their medical decisions for them. They have said there should be no exceptions in an abortion ban: not when a child is raped, not when a woman may die, not even when a child cannot survive being born. The day before FEMA applications were due for our neighbors in Eastern Kentucky who lost everything in the recent flooding, more than a dozen lawmakers held a press conference, not to offer support to flooding victims, not to share resources, but to discuss totally banning abortion. Our legislators no longer understand our priorities.

This week, legislators told us that when parents are facing the worst and hardest and most personal decisions of their lives, they should be the ones to make their choices for them. That is not what the people of Kentucky believe, and on November 8, we will go to the polls to tell them so.

These politicians have the media to talk for them. They have a bully pulpit. We only have our votes. But on November 8, we intend to make those votes speak loud and clear.

On November 8, our right to our medical decisions is on the ballot. Total control for state legislatures over the decisions of doctors and their patients is on the ballot. Our ability to take care of our own neighbors, friends, and family members when they need us is on the ballot. On Tuesday, across the state of Kentucky, we will vote No on Amendment 2.

Protect Kentucky Access is a collection of non-profit and community organizations across the Commonwealth that are coming together for the purpose of stopping and defeating the ballot initiative in Kentucky that seeks to end the right to an abortion. Its priorities are: Defeat the constitutional amendment; create an environment where Kentuckians feel safe to speak about abortion and reproductive health, and build a strong movement of Kentuckians to defend reproductive freedom.