On the most entrenched issue in the legislature, a change of heart — much less a changed vote — for even a single lawmaker would make the news. With legislators firmly dug in on both sides, it often makes for lopsided vote counts and swift passage of bills placing tighter restrictions on abortion.
"I think this will be the most that I will probably vote (on) while I'm down here this session and maybe while I'm while down here as a senator," Sen. Johnnie Turner said, explaining his aye vote on Senate Bill 321, a 15-week abortion ban.
The overwhelming support for anti-abortion rights legislation frequently leaves minority Democrats with one option: impassioned pleas in committee rooms and on the chamber floors. And that's what Rep. Karen Berg, a physician from Louisville, delivered in a fiery committee speech that went viral over the weekend.
"You are killing women, because abortion will continue. Women will continue to have efficacy over their own body, whether or not you make it legal."Rep. Karen Berg (R-Louisville)
It's not the first time the argument has been made in Frankfort, but Berg's delivery earned her more than 50-thousand new Twitter followers, according to Planned Parenthood, a retweet from actress Patricia Arquette, and a Wonder Woman gif from Susan Eisenberg, who voices the character on the animated Justice League series.
Berg was responding to a Kentucky bill modeled after a 15-week abortion ban passed in Mississippi that's headed for a U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer.
In the event that the Supreme Court upholds the Mississippi legislation as constitutional, we will have a pro-life law in place that would not be subject to a good faith legal challenge," Sen. Max Wise explained.
Many Kentucky lawmakers have pinned their hopes on the forthcoming high court ruling, anticipating a possible turning point for abortion rights opponents nationwide.
