NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Cameron v. EMW Women's Surgical Center - Reproductive Freedom for All

Formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America

Press Release

NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center

For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 3, 2022
Contact: [email protected]

 

Washington, DC Today, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, a case about whether anti-choice Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron could step in at the eleventh hour to defend an unconstitutional abortion ban in Kentucky. The Court sided with Cameron, opening the door for the Kentucky attorney general to continue his quest to defend the unconstitutional ban.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:

“Anti-choice politicians are using every trick in the book to restrict reproductive freedom, and the Supreme Court’s decision in this case gives them the greenlight to continue their efforts to undermine our fundamental rights. This case is a perfect example of the lengths that anti-choice politicians like Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron will go to in order to enforce unconstitutional abortion bans. There’s no question that, should the ban underlying this case take effect, it will roll back people’s freedom to make their own decisions about their lives, bodies, and futures.”

While today’s decision does not address the constitutionality of the abortion ban in Kentucky, it will open the door for the state’s anti-choice attorney general, Daniel Cameron, to defend Kentucky’s abortion ban. Lower courts have already found this ban to be unconstitutional. The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Cameron to intervene and defend the ban could have significant repercussions on access to abortion care for the people in Kentucky and the surrounding states if the ban were to go into effect. The ban at issue in the underlying case—a restriction on the standard method for abortion care used after about 15 weeks of pregnancy—is part of the anti-choice agenda to further push access to abortion care out of reach.

In the coming months, the Supreme Court will rule in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—a case concerning Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban that directly challenges Roe v. Wade and threatens to end the constitutional right to abortion. If the Court upholds Mississippi’s ban, the constitutional right to abortion will cease to exist as we know it. Should Roe fall, 28 states would likely take action to prohibit abortion outright. Of those, 12 states—including Kentucky—already have “trigger bans” in place, which would automatically ban abortion.

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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.