A constitutional amendment bill that would establish the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including abortion, is awaiting a committee hearing.
House Bill 476, filed by Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, proposes a constitutional amendment that establishes the right of Kentuckians to make decisions about “all matters relating to pregnancy,” such as prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion, miscarriage management and infertility treatments.
The constitutional amendment would bar the state from penalizing or prosecuting a woman based on her “actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes,” which includes miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion, or from taking similar adverse actions against someone aiding a woman in exercising the right to reproductive freedom.
HB 476 also allows Kentucky to regulate abortion after fetal viability, “provided that in no circumstance shall the commonwealth prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
Fetal viability, the point in a pregnancy when a fetus has the ability to survive outside of the uterus with medical help, is estimated between 24 and 26 weeks gestation. While more rare, babies do survive preterm delivery earlier in pregnancy, with the earliest documented survivor born at 21 weeks, 0 days gestation.
“My intention is to restore what the status quo was prior to the [Dobbs] decision. Women have a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, to seek care from qualified professionals in a safe environment,” Grossberg said. “But I also don’t believe any right is without limits. For my entire life until 2022, the generally accepted standard was fetal viability.”
Richard Nelson, executive director of the Commonwealth Policy Center said that’s a “hollow gesture,” allowing for abortion at any stage “based on the subjective claim of preserving ‘mental health,'” which can be a medically indicated exception for abortion under the constitutional amendment.
“HB 476 proposes to rewrite Kentucky’s Constitution by creating an unlimited right to abortion under the guise of ‘reproductive freedom’ but authentic freedom doesn’t marginalize members of the human community and pave the way for their demise,” said Nelson in an email. “Section 1 of Kentucky’s Constitution preserves the fundamental right of life. If this proposal makes its way into our constitution it would negate the first and most basic of our rights.”
Addia Wuchner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life, said HB 476 would “strip away” protections for unborn children and limited the ability of elected representatives to enact “life affirming safeguards” for Kentuckians.
“HB 476 introduces constitutional ambiguity that invites litigation and judicial activism, placing ideology over human dignity,” said Wuchner. “Our Constitution should affirm the value of every human life, not be used to legalize abortion under the guise of reproductive health while erasing protections for the unborn.”
Grossberg said he was inspired to file HB 476 by the three Jewish women who most recently challenged Kentucky’s abortion bans, alleging the state’s pro-life laws regulating elective pregnancy termination could affect in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Jessica Kalb, Lisa Sobel and Sarah Baron expressed religiously-motivated desires to expand their families using IVF and initially sued the state in 2022, alleging that statutes regulating abortion were unconstitutional, vague and unintelligible—impacting fertility treatment and favoring Christian values. After a 2024 setback, a Kentucky Court of Appeals panel ruled Kalb had standing to sue in July 2025.
A Jefferson Circuit Court judge heard arguments in the case on December 1, 2025. He has yet to issue a ruling.
“I’m afraid that while our state’s abortion ban may not deliberately ban IVF, it could certainly be used to do so. Then Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued an opinion that the ban should not be used to prosecute the use of IVF, but those decisions would be left to the individual prosecutors now and in the future,” Grossberg said. “I wanted to ensure that couldn’t happen, because I have colleague who have said that yes, in fact, they would want to prosecute IVF. But my bill doesn’t stop with IVF. I wanted to enshrine protecting all reproductive rights, including contraception, which I fear will soon be under attack.”
House Bill 476 has been assigned to the Elections, Constitutional Amendments & Intergovernmental Affairs committee.
By Tessa Redmond, Kentucky Today
