By Dave Andrusko
On Monday, we posted a detailed statement from the office of pro-life Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron alerting us that Cameron’s office had filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court which argues “that as the ‘chief law officer’ for the Commonwealth, the Attorney General must be allowed to intervene in the case” to defend House Bill 454, Kentucky’s law prohibiting the dismemberment of living unborn babies.
The legal history of HB 454 is lengthy and complicated. In a nutshell
Attorney General Cameron’s team defended HB 454 on behalf of the Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The Sixth Circuit upheld an injunction against the law in a split vote, and the [pro-abortion] Beshear Administration refused to appeal and continue defending the law. Attorney General Cameron attempted to intervene in the case two days later to ensure the law continued to receive a full defense, but the Sixth Circuit denied his motion.
Back in December, a coalition of 20 state attorneys general filed a amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Daniel Cameron, Attorney General of Kentucky, Petitioner v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C., et al. defending Cameron’s right to defend his state’s abortion laws. The amicus argues
The Sixth Circuit panel majority deprived the Commonwealth of Kentucky from seeking complete appellate review of the District Court’s injunction invalidating one of its duly enacted laws. And it did so on purely procedural grounds, holding that the Kentucky Attorney General could not intervene to vindicate state law on appeal because a single state officer had decided to abandon defense of a law passed by both houses of its Legislature and signed into law by its [previous] Governor.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Attorney General Cameron’s request to be allowed to participate in defending his state’s law. The High Court will hear the case this fall and Attorney General Cameron wants to be able to defend HB 454 in court.
His brief explains why the opening question should be answered in the affirmative:
Whether a state attorney general vested with the power to defend state law should be permitted to intervene after a federal court of appeals invalidates a state statute when no other state actor will defend the law.
HB 454 prohibits the gruesome dismemberment abortion procedure from being performed on a living unborn child. In these hideous abortions, an unborn child is born apart, in the womb, while he or she is still alive.