A 2011 proposed merger of University of Louisville Hospital and Catholic Health Initiatives of Denver galvanized men and women across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. One of the major impacts of this proposed merger would be restriction of reproductive services to women in Kentucky, from the inability to receive contraceptive prescriptions to not being able to save a woman’s life because of pregnancy complications.  The proposed merger was a wake-up call to men and women who cared about women’s rights to make their own reproductive choices.

The 2012 election brought out such craziness as when a candidate from  Indiana for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Richard Mourdock, said that when a woman becomes pregnant during rape “it is something that God intended.”

And the infamous statement from Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri who declared that in “legitimate” rapes,  women’s bodies block unwanted pregnancies.

Then in the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly,  male Senators and Representatives filed various bills that would have further restricted access to reproductive choice, in this already most restrictive state in the nation.

Kentucky women and men said “Enough is enough” to this rise of strong opposition to women’s rights for reproductive health care — and the Reproductive Rights for Kentucky PAC was formed.

This PAC is a non-partisan, multi-candidate Kentucky-focused, federal political action committee that will:

• Support, both publicly and financially, those elected federal and state officials and viable candidates who safeguard women’s rights, and
• Fight legislation and judicial actions in Kentucky that try to eliminate or curtail access to contraception, or to further restrict or criminalize abortion in all circumstances.

Kentucky, and this country, face serious problems, and our legislators need to work to solve them rather than needlessly intruding and interfering with men’s and women’s rights to reproductive freedom.