Governor Andy Beshear renewed a call for Kentucky and Tennessee to add exceptions for rape and fatal fetal abnormalities to both states’ near-total abortion bans, saying “extremism turns everyone off.”
“Imagine someone being abused by a person in their family, someone who is supposed to protect them,” Beshear told a crowd at the Tennessee Justice Center in Nashville on Friday evening.
There is no fault with the victim, he said, “just a crime was committed, and our state legislators are trying to say they shouldn’t have basic options.”
The second-term Democratic governor, along with abortion rights advocate Hadley Duvall, were the keynote speakers at the fundraiser to restore access to reproductive health care in Tennessee, hosted by the Tennessee Freedom Circle, a reproductive rights group formed after the fall of Roe v.Wade. in 2022. Among the audience of about 100 donors and supporters were a handful of Democratic Volunteer State lawmakers.
Tennessee, like Kentucky, has banned abortion except when it is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or when a pregnancy is not viable.
Duvall, a recent college graduate who rose to national fame last year after being featured in a Beshear re-election ad — she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather at age 12 — highlighted the need for Kentucky lawmakers to at least restore access to abortion with exceptions to rape and incest.
Ahead of his re-election, Beshear told the Herald-Leader he believed Roe “got it right, and that’s certainly more access than we have now.”
Beshear’s Republican challenger, former attorney general Daniel Cameron, defended the ban as it is in court in his capacity as the Commonwealth’s top law enforcement official. About a week after the Beshear campaign ran an ad attacking Cameron for this long-held position, Cameron changed his tune and said that if elected, “there is no question” he would sign a bill that these exceptions would be added.
The ad featuring Duvall, which would have helped Beshear defeat Cameron by 5 percentage points, was discussed nationally as an effective way for Democrats to communicate about abortion.
“I had the option (of abortion) and the trauma is still indescribable,” Duvall said. “At the very least, these survivors deserve some kind of power over themselves when everything is stripped from them.
“They at least deserve options. Why can’t we give it to them?”
Two bills to add exceptions for rape, incest and nonviable pregnancies were reintroduced earlier this year during the regular session of the Kentucky General Assembly.
Democratic state Rep. David Yates, D-Louisville, called his bill Hadley’s Law, and Duvall spoke as it was introduced. Neither proposal was heard in committee.
“Exceptions are not all we want, but it is the right direction to go,” Duvall said Friday. Lawmakers “didn’t tell me they didn’t want(ed) to do that; they just chose not to even listen to my bill.
The Nashville event marked the third out-of-state appearance for Kentucky’s Democratic governor in as many months.
Beshear headlined annual fundraisers in Montana and Ohio in March. And on Saturday, a day after his appearance in Nashville, he spoke at the annual Democratic fundraiser in Virginia.
Last week, the Iowa Democratic Party announced that it had invited Beshear to be the keynote speaker at the group’s annual fundraiser in July — a move that, all things considered, raises suspicions about a Beshear presidential election in 2028.
Beshear has pledged to serve the entire second term, which ends in 2027, when his term is limited to re-election.
At Friday’s event, Beshear largely echoed sentiments he shared in Kentucky, both as governor and on the campaign trail — disgust at the Republican supermajority Legislature’s unwillingness to pass an exemption bill to end the “draconian” abortion ban expand; emphasizing the importance of “leading with empathy and compassion” from a “place of human decency” in this matter; and noting how the conversation has evolved from a pro-choice or pro-life binary to a question of, “do you believe the victims, rape, and incest deserve options?”
Although his talking points were the same, his speech was more nationalized.
“The American people don’t like extremism, (or) when people get mean and nasty, especially when people they can identify with are directly harmed,” he said. “It’s not the right way to govern.
“Our policy is not aimed at proving how pure you are towards this party or that party; they are about people.”
Beshear was praised at the event for being “an example of what is possible when leaders prioritize the rights and well-being of their constituents,” the Democratic Rep. said. Aftyn Behn of Tennessee, who introduced Beshear.
“I can tell you it’s working because I ran as a Democrat in Kentucky and ran ads on this issue during this election,” Beshear said. “One of the reasons we were able to do that is because people were brave enough to stand up and tell their stories.”
