Republican candidate for governor supports criminalizing birth control

Many Kentuckians might be forced to abstain from the state’s finest export for several months at a time should Republicans capture the governorship:

“Cameron has done everything he can to obstruct access to abortion so we will do everything we can to make sure that Cameron is not elected,” Wieder said. As they should, especially given this second piece of news (which is inexplicably buried at the bottom of NBC News’ piece on the race): Cameron believes hormonal birth control is abortion. Or at least, he’s agreed to treat it as such.

In a 2023 questionnaire from Northern Kentucky Right to Life, Cameron affirmed that he would codify personhood from the moment of fertilization, support legislation that prohibits state funding for abortion, and criminalize anyone who provides abortion care or even pays for an abortion. Here’s the kicker: The organization defines abortion to include “the so-called ‘morning after pill,’ Norplant, Depo Provera, or the so-called ‘standard birth control pill.’”

That’s right, the Republican candidate for governor in Kentucky agreed to criminalize hormonal birth control. That seems extremely fucking noteworthy! It also gets at exactly what I was writing about it in my piece about the “GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control” and their tactic of redefining certain types of contraception as abortifacients.

As I’ve said before, whether the Court will explicitly announce that Griswold has been overruled is the wrong question to focus on. The right question is whether the Court will simply allow states to ban any form of birth control women have control over by falsely claiming that they cause abortions.