Deborah Yetter

The (Louisville) Courier-Journal

LOUISVILLE — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Monday aimed at blocking a new Kentucky law that would require doctors providing abortions to first perform an ultrasound of the fetus and try to show and describe the image to the patient — even if she objects.

The Kentucky General Assembly approved the measure, Kentucky House Bill 2, Saturday with an emergency clause that allowed Gov. Matt Bevin to sign it into law immediately.

The law "violates longstanding constitutional principles, including the right to privacy, the right to bodily integrity and First Amendment Freedoms," said William Sharp, legal director of the ACLU of Kentucky.

But Bevin, in an interview Monday with WHAS-AM host Terry Meiners, dismissed the legal challenge.

“It’s a shocker that the ACLU is suing someone,” said Bevin, a Republican and abortion opponent. “We anticipated as much. That’s what they do. It’s what liberals always do when they don’t like something, they sue."

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The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court here on behalf of the state's sole abortion provider, EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville, and three physicians who provide abortions.

Two other clinics, EMW in Lexington and Planned Parenthood in Louisville, suspended abortions last year after the Bevin administration sued them, alleging they were operating without proper state licensure. Those legal disputes are pending.

The ACLU's lawsuit asks the court to declare the new ultrasound law "unconstitutional and unenforceable."

It claims the bill was "rushed" through the legislature and "forces physicians to deliver a government-mandated, ideological message" to a patient "lying captive on the examination table." It also said the procedure is invasive because, prior to nine weeks into a pregnancy, the physician must use a probe inserted into the vagina to conduct a fetal ultrasound.

A federal appeals court struck down similar law from North Carolina in 2014, the ACLU said.

Half the states, excluding Kentucky, have laws mandating ultrasounds before abortions, according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Guttmacher Institute. But only three of those states — Louisiana, Texas and Wisconsin — require that the results of the ultrasound must be displayed and described to a woman before she is allowed to have an abortion.

Nine of the states — Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia — say that a woman must be offered an opportunity to view the image.

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Kentucky's new ultrasound law was one of two abortion bills passed in the first week of the legislature under new Republican control of the House. The Senate already had a GOP majority.

The other measure, Senate Bill 5, bans abortions after the 20th week of a pregnancy. Bevin also signed it into law and said in Monday's radio interview that he strongly supports the ban.

“I personally believe that it’s inappropriate to kill human beings that are innocent,” Bevin said.

The ACLU said it is analyzing that law as well.

Both measures were among a handful of bills Republicans leaders identified as priorities and pushed through the legislature quickly despite objections from abortion-rights supporters that the proposals were rushed, unfair to women and had not had thorough review.

Republicans and conservative Democrats in the legislature have been pushing for such legislation for years but had been stymied in the House, which until this year had been controlled by Democrats. Both abortion bills were passed last week after impassioned and sometimes heated debate.

Supporters of the ultrasound law said it will ensure that women have the information they need to provide informed consent for an abortion by getting the chance to see an image of the fetus and hearing a heartbeat.

But opponents say the ultrasound proposal adds another barrier to abortion for women as well as adding an invasive and unnecessary medical procedure.

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“This is only meant to coerce and shame women,” said Tamarra Wieder of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

The law permits the patient to avert her eyes or refuse to listen to the heartbeat if she chooses. It doesn't say whether the patient may refuse to listen to the physician's description of the ultrasound image.

Any physician or technician who fails to follow the ultrasound law could be fined up to $100,000 for the first violation and up to $250,000 for each subsequent offense.

Contributing: Phillip Bailey, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Follow Deborah Yetter on Twitter: @d_yetter