Tell Your Legislator to Vote No or Oppose House Bill 335 and Senate Bill 115:
Democrats Karen Berg, Casey Chambers Armstrong, and Keturah Herron have sponsored or cosponsored legislation for a state constitutional amendment that would enable a petition process for getting more state constitutional amendments on the ballot later. This is known as a citizen-initiated ballot amendment process, in contrast to what Kentucky has long had, which is a legislature-initiated ballot amendment process.
At first, this sounds like a good idea. After all, it would give more authority to the people to get more constitutional amendments on the ballot. But why are Democrats wanting to get this passed?
The Democrats want us to have citizen-initiated ballot amendments so that they can put a pro-abortion amendment on the ballot later. This tactic is well-known by the pro-choice Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) which wrote an article about it last year.
In the past few years, Planned Parenthood and their allies have used the citizen-initiated ballot amendment processes to get pro-choice (or pro-abortion) amendments on the ballot in states like Florida, Nebraska, and Ohio.
That pro-abortion amendment, if introduced in Kentucky, would likely have wording like Ohio's abortion amendment, where it affirms rights for fertility, contraception, and miscarriage. But then it would also include opening the floodgates to more surgical abortions in the state, by declaring abortion access to be a fundamental right.
Between 2021 and 2023, thanks to our pro-life laws and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, surgical abortions went down by 99%. (This is according to combined data from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Kentucky Cabinet of Health.) The abortion amendment that Democrats want to propose would undo that, and they would be able to put that amendment on the ballot if they establish citizen-initiated ballot amendments.
Please tell your state legislator to vote NO on House Bill 335 and vote NO on Senate Bill 115. Let them know that a vote for citizen-initiated ballot amendments is a vote for many more legal surgical abortions in our Commonwealth.
Thanks,
Sincerely,
Dr. Frank Simon, M.D. and his staff
Kentucky Family Association and Kentucky Doctors for Life