By Tessa Redmond
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – In June 2022, 304 lives were lost to abortion in Kentucky. Due to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade on June 24, which changed the landscape of abortion access in the commonwealth, it is the lowest monthly total reported this year.
EMW Women’s Surgical Center performed 83% of abortions reported in June. Planned Parenthood in Louisville, the state’s only other licensed abortion provider, performed 53 abortions.
Most abortions (80%) were performed between 6- and 9-weeks gestation. Only 19 pregnancies were terminated in the second trimester, while 285 abortions occurred before the end of the first trimester.
Nearly two hundred women had given birth prior to their June abortion; two women reported previously birthing six children. Two more gave birth to seven.
However, 54% of women were receiving their first abortion in June. Even so, several women reported a high volume of previous pregnancy terminations. One woman obtained her 8th abortion, one her 9th abortion, and two their 10th abortion that month.
Medical abortions accounted for 54% of abortions; surgical abortions utilizing the suction curettage method terminated 132 pregnancies. Eight unborn lives were ended via dilation and evacuation (D&E), a common second-trimester procedure that dismembers the fetus in utero. June 2022 represented the lowest monthly usage of the procedure since Kentucky Today began gathering monthly abortion data in January 2021.
Kentuckians accounted for 246 of June abortions. The remaining 19% of women reported living in 8 other states and 1 out of country.
At the 2022 six-month mark, there have been 2,217 abortions performed in the commonwealth—a slight increase over the 2021 mid-year total of 2,172.
Abortions in 2022 were on track to outpace previous years, continuing the five year trend of annual increases in the total number of abortions. However, a legal battle that temporarily closed clinics in April, the fall of Roe in June and the subsequent implementation of Kentucky’s trigger abortion ban have derailed the break-neck pace. And even though a district court judge blocked the law in court on June 30, a state appeals court reinstated the trigger ban on August 1.
Abortions are currently illegal in Kentucky as the lawsuit plays out in court.
All data related to abortions provided in Kentucky are made available to the public through the Open Records Act.
Friends of Life KY 