A pregnant woman in Kentucky who filed a lawsuit over the state’s six-week abortion ban has learned her embryo no longer has a heartbeat, her legal team said Tuesday.
The plaintiff, who is identified as Jane Doe, is eight weeks pregnant, and, according to court documents, “decided that the best course of action for herself and her family is to terminate the pregnancy.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, one of the groups representing Doe, filed the lawsuit on Friday, asking for a temporary restraining order that would allow her to get an abortion.
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“I am a proud Kentuckian and I love the life and family I have built here. But I am angry that now that I am pregnant and do not want to be, the government is interfering in my private matters and blocking me from having an abortion,” Doe wrote in a statement issued by the ACLU. “This is my decision–not the government’s or any other person’s.”
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Doe’s lawyers called on other pregnant Kentuckians seeking abortions to join their case, which argues that the state is violating rights to privacy and self-determination under its own constitution.
ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project Deputy Director Brigitte Amiri, who represents Doe, issued a Tuesday statement, saying that the state “denied her the freedom to control her body” and that Kentuckians “should be able to focus solely on their health and should not have to worry about bringing a lawsuit.”
Amiri explained that the Kentucky Supreme Court previously ruled that health care providers could not argue for the rights of their patients, leaving them on their own to fight the state. “We will do everything we can to restore abortion access in Kentucky,” she wrote, concluding her statement.
In February, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to allow abortions to resume, turning down a request to remove its ban that had been in effect since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
