The law’s impact makes Kentucky the first US state without legal access to abortion since Roe v. Wade of the Supreme Court in 1973, which established the right to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus was viable, according to abortion providers.
Abortion rights groups have said they will challenge the bill in court.
The law imposes requirements that state clinics say make it too difficult and logistically expensive to operate, including a provision requiring fetal remains to be cremated or buried.
It requires the issuance of a combined birth-death or stillbirth certificate for each abortion and prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed the bill Friday, but the Republican-majority House and Senate overruled his veto Wednesday night.
In his veto letter, Beshear expressed concern that the bill did not provide exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest and said it was “probably unconstitutional” because of the requirements that it imposed on service providers.
“Rape and incest are violent crimes. Victims of these crimes should have options,” Beshear wrote.
The legislature overturned several other Beshear vetoes on Wednesday, including a bill banning transgender girls from playing girl’s sports.
Two provisions of the abortion law prevent state abortion clinics from operating, according to Planned Parenthood Kentucky director Tamarra Wieder.
The first is the requirement for the state Board of Pharmacy to certify providers who dispense abortion pills. Until providers are certified, they cannot offer medical abortions.
The second is a requirement that fetal remains be cremated or buried, which imposes logistical and financial burdens on clinics that they cannot afford.
The bill also bans telesant for medical abortions, requiring an in-person visit to the doctor for patients who wish to terminate their pregnancy on the pill.
Republican-run states have quickly passed increasingly strict abortion bans this year, in hopes that an impending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could help the bans withstand legal challenges. On Tuesday, Oklahoma’s governor signed a near-total abortion ban that is set to go into effect in August.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June on a case involving a Republican-backed Mississippi law that gives its conservative majority a chance to undermine or even repeal the landmark Roe v. Wade in 1973 which legalized abortion nationwide.
During the closing arguments in this case, the conservative judges signaled their desire to drastically reduce the right to abortion in the United States.