Beshear denounces ‘extremism’ in abortion policy at Tenn. reproductive health event

Gov. Andy Beshear reiterated a call for Kentucky and Tennessee to add rape and fatal fetal anomaly exceptions to both state’s near-total abortion bans, saying “extremism pushes everybody off.”

“Imagine somebody violated by a person in their family, somebody who is supposed to keep them safe,” Beshear said to a crowd at the Tennessee Justice Center in Nashville Friday evening.

There is no fault with the victim, he said, “there is only a crime committed, and our state legislatures are trying to say they shouldn’t have basic options.”

The second-term Democratic governor, alongside abortion rights advocate Hadley Duvall, were the keynote speakers at fundraiser for the restoration of reproductive health care access in Tennessee hosted by the Tennessee Freedom Circle, a group formed after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Among the audience of roughly 100 donors and supporters were a handful of the Volunteer State’s Democratic lawmakers.

Tennessee, like Kentucky, has banned abortion except when it’s necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or when a pregnancy is nonviable.

A recent college graduate, Duvall gained national prominence last year after she was featured in a Beshear re-election ad — she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather at age 12 — highlighting the need for Kentucky lawmakers to restore abortion access, at the very least rape and incest exceptions.

Leading up to his reelection, Beshear told the Herald-Leader he believed Roe “had it right, and that is more access, certainly than right now.”

Beshear’s Republican challenger, former Attorney General Daniel Cameron, defended the ban as-is in court in his capacity as the commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer. Roughly a week after the Beshear campaign ran an ad knocking Cameron for this long-held position, Cameron changed his tune, saying if he were elected, “there’s no question” he would sign a law adding those exceptions.

The ad featuring Duvall, which is credited with helping Beshear to beat Cameron by 5 percentage points, was discussed nationally as an effective way for Democrats to message on abortion.

“I had the option (of abortion) and the trauma is still indescribable,” Duvall said. “At the very least, these survivors deserve some sort of power over themselves, when all is stripped from them.

“At the very least they deserve options Why can we not give them that?”

Two bills to add exceptions for rape, incest and nonviable pregnancies were again proposed in the Kentucky General Assembly’s regular session earlier this year.

Democrat state Rep. David Yates, D-Louisville, named his bill Hadley’s Law, and Duvall spoke when it was introduced. Neither proposal was heard in committee.

“Exceptions are not all we want, but its the right direction to move in,” Duvall said Friday. Lawmakers “didn’t tell me they didn’t (want them); they just chose to not even listen to my bill.”

The Nashville event was the third out-of-state speaking 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 Nashville appearance, he spoke at the annual Democratic fundraiser in Virginia.

Last week, the Iowa Democratic Party announced it had invited Beshear to be its keynote speaker at the group’s annual fundraiser in July — a move, all things considered, that’s fanning suspicions about a Beshear presidential run in 2028.

Beshear has vowed to serve the whole of his second term in office, which expires in 2027, when he is term-limited from seeking re-election.

At Friday’s event, Beshear largely repeated sentiments he has shared in Kentucky, both as governor and on the campaign trail — distaste at the GOP supermajority legislature’s unwillingness to pass an exceptions bill to broaden its “draconian” abortion ban; spotlighting the importance of “leading with empathy and compassion” from a “place of human decency” on this issue; and noting how the conversation has graduated from a pro-choice or pro-life binary to a question of, “do you believe the victims and rape and incest deserve options?”

Though his talking points were the same, his delivery was more nationalized.

“The American people do not like extremism, (or) when people become mean and nasty, especially when people they can relate to are directly harmed,” he said. “It’s not the right way to govern.

“Our policies aren’t about proving how pure you are to this party or that party; they’re about human beings.”

Beshear was lauded at the event for being “an example of what’s possible when leaders prioritize the rights and well-beings of their constituents,” said Tennessee Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who introduced Beshear.

“I can tell you it works, because I was a Democrat running in Kentucky that ran ads on this issue in this election,” Beshear said. “One of the reasons we were able to do that is people were brave enough to stand up and tell their story.”