Kentucky ACLU drops suit challenging the state’s near-ban on abortion

CNA Staff, Jun 5, 2025 / 17:34 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news:

Kentucky ACLU drops suit challenging state’s near-ban on abortion 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky recently dropped a lawsuit it filed last year challenging Kentucky’s protections for unborn children.  

The ACLU filed a motion last Friday to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit and did not give a reason.  

The organization filed the suit, Poe v. Coleman, last year in a state court in Louisville on behalf of a woman identified under the pseudonym Mary Poe for her privacy. She was seven weeks pregnant at the time.

The suit challenged Kentucky’s laws that protect unborn children from abortion: namely the state’s trigger law prohibiting most abortions after Roe v. Wade was overturned and a separate law protecting unborn children after six weeks of life. Kentucky law allows abortions only when the mother’s life or health is at stake. In 2023, the state recorded only 23 abortions. 

ACLU of Kentucky Executive Director Amber Duke said in a statement that the group “will not be providing additional details about the dismissal,” noting that “decisions about health care are and should remain private.” But Duke pledged that the group “will never stop fighting to restore abortion access” in the state.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman celebrated the withdrawal in a post on X, saying that “Kentuckians can be proud that our pro-life values won the day today and innocent lives will continue to be saved as a result.”

Pro-life protesters file free speech lawsuit 

A young pro-life couple from Ohio recently filed a free speech lawsuit after the husband was arrested for speaking on a megaphone outside of an abortion clinic.  

Zachary and Lindsay Knotts filed the lawsuit on May 30, saying that their freedom of speech and religion was violated. 

Since December 2024, the Knotts have spent Saturday mornings participating in sidewalk advocacy to save the lives of the unborn at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center, an abortion clinic in Cuyahoga Falls, according to the lawsuit. 

Zachary Knotts was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. He had been using a megaphone to amplify his voice over the noise pro-abortion escorts were making to drown him out.  

The lawsuit noted that abortion escorts used whistles and kazoos to drown out the Knotts’ speech, but “only Mr. Knotts was given a citation and prosecuted for disorderly conduct.” 

The lawsuit called the arrest “retaliatory” and said it violated free speech because the ordinance was not equally applied, banning amplified speech based on the nature of the speech.

Attorneys general call for expansion of chemical abortions

The attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, and New York this week called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to eliminate restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone following the FDA’s recent announcement that it would review the drug for safety concerns. 

In a joint petition on June 5, the four states’ attorneys general called on the FDA to remove prescriber certification, patient agreement forms, and pharmacy certification requirements. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James said the drug has a “25-year safety record” and that the FDA should “lift these unnecessary barriers.”

The petition follows the recent commitment by the FDA to review the drug for safety concerns in the wake of a study that found that about 11% of women suffer at least one “serious adverse event” within 45 days of taking mifepristone for an abortion.

A chemical abortion takes place via a two-pill regimen. The first pill, mifepristone, kills the child by blocking the hormone progesterone, which cuts off the child’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. A second pill, misoprostol, is taken between 24 to 48 hours after mifepristone to induce contractions meant to expel the child’s body from the mother, essentially inducing labor.

In April, a first-of-its-kind study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center found that of 865,727 mifepristone-taking abortion patients over six years, thousands were hospitalized, more than 1,000 needed blood transfusions, and hundreds suffered from sepsis. Nearly 2,000 had a different life-threatening adverse event.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/264573/kentucky-aclu-drops-suit-challenging-the-states-near-ban-on-abortion