News & Commentary

With a unanimous vote of 5-0 by the city council, the Campbell County town of Fort Thomas, population 16,263, became the seventeenth city in the Commonwealth and fifth in Northern Kentucky to approve a Fairness Ordinance prohibiting LGBTQ discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. 

Kentucky must implement policies addressing racial bias in medicine and increase access to doulas, who support pregnant patients. Learn more and tell your legislators to VOTE YES on the Maternal CARE Act here.

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

Newly elected governor Andy Beshear signed an executive order Thursday, December 12, automatically restoring voting rights to more than 175,000 Kentuckians with past felony convictions who have completed their full sentences, probation, and parole. It also applies to people who are still on probation or parole only because of unpaid fines or restitution.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced today it would not review a decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Kentucky’s forced narrated ultrasound law against a First Amendment challenge. Today’s ruling allows H.B. 2, Kentucky’s forced, narrated ultrasound law, to take effect. The physicians at Kentucky’s last abortion clinic will be forced to subject every patient to their ultrasound images, a detailed description of those images, and the sounds of the fetal heart tones prior to an abortion — even if the patient objects or is covering their eyes and blocking their ears, and even if the physician believes that doing so will cause harm to the patient. “By refusing to review the Sixth Circuit’s ruling, the Supreme Court has rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “This law is not only unconstitutional, but as leading medical experts and ethicists explained, deeply unethical. We are extremely disappointed that the Supreme Court will allow this blatant violation of the First Amendment and fundamental medical ethics to stand.”H.B. 2 has been widely and unequivocally condemned by the medical community, including in friend-of-the-court briefs submitted by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Public Health Association, as well as by more than 130 leading biomedical ethicists from around the country.

With Freedom From Religion Foundation and ACLU-KY Backing, Kentucky Man Wins Right To Have "IM GOD" License Plate

The ACLU of Kentucky has seen unprecedented growth over the past year.

We're hiring two summer legal interns! 

Make sure you're ready to vote on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5, 2019! Go through the Election Day Checklist below and make sure you are prepared.