From left, Jessica Kalb, Sarah Baron and Lisa Sobel are challenging Kentucky's abortion ban. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

LOUISVILLE — Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Brian Edwards heard oral arguments Monday in the case of? three Jewish women who argue their religious freedom is violated by Kentucky’s abortion ban.?

Much of the arguments focused on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the extent to which it overlaps with the state’s abortion ban. Several lawmakers filed bills to protect the process in Kentucky this session, but none became law. Some feel IVF is in limbo since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in mid February that frozen embryos are children.?

Is IVF protected in Kentucky? Depends on whom you ask.

The oral arguments?

Aaron Kemper and Benjamin Potash, lawyers for the plaintiffs, argued Monday that Kentucky has imposed and codified a religious viewpoint that conflicts with the Jewish belief that birth, not conception, is the beginning of life.

They also said their plaintiffs — Lisa Sobel, Jessica Kalb and Sarah Baron — feel Kentucky’s current laws around abortion inhibit their ability to grow their families.?

One of the plaintiffs, Kalb, has nine frozen embryos right now that she’s paying thousands of dollars annually to preserve.?

“She’s 33 years old; she does not plan on having nine children,” Kemper said.?

“You have three women here who are not pregnant right now, all of whom want to be pregnant,” Potash said. “They’re not able to be pregnant because these laws get in the way.”??

As Kentucky law stands now, there is disagreement on what protections exist for unused frozen embryos and if discarding them is permissible. “We don’t know if terminating a fertilized egg is illegal on day zero,” Kemper said.?

Lindsey Keiser argued for the Kentucky Attorney General’s office — which is named as a defendant — that the “alleged injuries are hypothetical” since the plaintiffs are not pregnant.?

Keiser said “it’s not clear or imminent that (Kalb) will have to dispose (of) all of those” embryos since sometimes implantations fail.?

Furthermore, Keiser argued, since Kentucky’s law defines pregnancy as a fetus inside a woman, “the disposal of embryos that are created through the process of IVF but not yet implanted will not trigger criminal penalties under either the abortion statute or the fetal homicide statute.”??

Since the AG’s position is that IVF in Kentucky is not limited, Keiser said, the government isn’t restricting those rights.

When it comes to abortion, she argued Kentucky does have a “compelling interest” in restricting the practice, even in the context of opposing religious beliefs.?

“Kentucky’s interest in preserving potential life is not limited to preserving it only for those who live long and healthy lives,” Keiser said. “The commonwealth’s interest in preserving life encompasses fostering respect for the sanctity of human life.”?

‘The law is on our side’

Judge Edwards said he will “endeavor to get an opinion out quickly.”?

No matter what the opinion is, Potash said, he expects one side to appeal.

“Eventually, in all likelihood, it will make it up to the Kentucky Supreme Court, where the same issues will be discussed,” Potash said after Monday’s arguments. “What it all boils down to are the issues in our summary judgment motion, and whether we have standing around or our clients have standing to bring those claims.”?

The lawyers said they’re confident their clients have personal standing, or the right to bring this case.?

“If they don’t have standing, no one has standing to challenge abortion rights in America,” Potash said. “They actually have a dispute with the government that needs adjudication. If the courts are going to shut their doors on these women … they’re going to shut the doors on all of us.”?

Jewish women cite Kentucky’s Religious Freedom law in contesting state abortion ban

While waiting for the ruling, Potash said: “We’re confident that the law is on our side, and the facts are on our side.”?

‘I shouldn’t have to leave.’?

Kalb told reporters after Monday’s arguments that because of her condition — she has polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which can cause cysts to form in the ovaries and lead to infertility — her pregnancies are more likely to end in miscarriage or abortion or need other complicated interventions.?

In June 2022,, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. V. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to abortion. Kentucky’s trigger law went into effect immediately, which bans abortion except when the mother’s life is at risk.?

Kalb, who moved to Kentucky in 2020, said the ruling put her plans to expand her family on hold. “Going through IVF again for me means that I have to put myself in that vulnerable situation of being pregnant, and possibly not being able to access care,” Kalb said. To get pregnant before, she said, she only needed one transfer.?

“It wasn’t like I went through four, five, six, seven. So right now, the way the law’s written, I could have to deal with nine pregnancies,” she said. “I’m 33, about to be 34. It’s a really scary situation, especially to have all of this publicly known. So, if the tides were to shift, I mean, there’s nothing protecting me right now.”?

Despite that, the women said it’s important for them to stay in Kentucky and fight to change the laws.?

“My family has been here since the early 1800s, and Jewish,” Sobel said. “I’ve always been a Kentucky Jew. … I always celebrated the Derby. I always cheered for the Louisville Cardinals. Being a Kentuckian is who I am. I shouldn’t have to leave in order to grow my family. I shouldn’t have to leave because the legislators don’t want to recognize that my faith matters too.”

Demonstrators at the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice at Union Square near the U.S. Capitol on May 17, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Lawmakers who oppose abortion often invoke their faith — many identify as Christian — while debating policy.

The anti-abortion movement’s use of Christianity in arguments might create the impression that broad swaths of religious Americans don’t support abortion rights. But a recent report shows that Americans of various faiths and denominations believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Jewish women cite Kentucky’s Religious Freedom law in contesting state abortion ban

According to a Public Religion Research Institute survey of some 22,000 U.S. adults released last week, 93% of Unitarian Universalists, 81% of Jews, 79% of Buddhists and 60% of Muslims also hold that view.

Researchers also found that most people who adhere to the two major branches of Christianity — Catholicism and Protestantism — also believe abortion should be mostly legal, save for three groups: white evangelical Protestants, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Historically, the Catholic Church has opposed abortion. But the poll found that 73% of Catholics of color — PRRI defines this group as Black, Asian, Native American and multiracial Americans — support the right to have an abortion, followed by 62% of white Catholics and 57% of Hispanic Catholics.

The findings show that interfaith views on abortion may not be as simple as they appear during political debate, where the voices of white evangelical legislators and advocates can be the loudest.

States Newsroom spoke with Abrahamic religious scholars — specifically, experts in Catholicism, Islam and Judaism — and reproductive rights advocates about varying perspectives on abortion and their history.

Abortion views in America before Roe v. Wade

The Moral Majority — a voting bloc of white, conservative evangelicals who rose to prominence after the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 — is often associated with spearheading legislation to restrict abortion.

Gillian Frank is a historian specializing in religion, gender and sexuality who teaches at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. Frank said evangelical views on abortion were actually more ambivalent before the early ’70s Roe decision established the federal right to terminate a pregnancy. (The Supreme Court upended that precedent about two years ago.)

“What we have to understand is that evangelicals, alongside mainline Protestants and Jews of various denominations, supported what was called therapeutic abortion, which is to say abortion for certain exceptional causes,” Frank said, including saving the life or health of the mother, fetal abnormalities, rape, incest and the pregnancy of a minor. Religious bodies like the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals said abortion was OK in certain circumstances, he added.

Evangelical Protestants before Roe did not endorse “elective abortions,” Frank said, or what they called “abortion on demand,” a phrase invoked by abortion-rights opponents today that he said entered the American lexicon around 1962.

The 1973 ruling was seismic and led organizations opposing abortion, such as the National Right to Life Committee — formed by the Conference of Catholic Bishops — to sprout across the country, according to an article published four years later in Southern Exposure. Catholic leaders often lobbied other religious groups — evangelicals, Mormons, orthodox Jews — to join their movement and likened abortion to murder in their newspapers.

After Roe, “abortion is increasingly associated with women’s liberation in popular rhetoric in popular culture, because of the activism of the women’s movement but also because of the ways in which the anti-abortion movement is associating abortion with familial decline,” Frank said. Those sentiments, he said, were spread by conservative figures like Phyllis Schlafly, a Catholic opposed to feminism and abortion, who campaigned against and managed to block the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

Polls suggest the views of Catholic clergy and laypeople diverge

Catholicism is generally synonymous with opposition to abortion. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church has stood against abortion since the first century. The conference points to Jeremiah 1:5 in the Bible to back up arguments that pregnancy termination is “contrary to the moral law.”

But nearly 6 in 10 American Catholics believe abortion should be mostly legal, according to a Pew Research Center report released last month.

Catholics for Choice spokesperson Ashley Wilson said that there’s a disconnect between the church as an institution and its laity. “We recognize that part of the problem is that the Catholic clergy, and the people who write the official teaching of the church, are all or mostly white male — my boss likes to say ostensibly celibate men — who don’t have wives,” Wilson said. “They don’t have daughters. They have no inroads into the lives of laypeople.”

Her group plans on going to Vatican City in Rome this fall to lift up stories of Catholics who’ve had abortions. The organization is also actively involved in efforts to restore abortion access — 14 states have near-total bans — through direct ballot measures in Colorado, Florida and Missouri this year.

Catholic dioceses and fraternities are often behind counter-efforts to proposed ballot questions. They poured millions into campaigns in Kansas and Kentucky in 2022 to push anti-abortion amendments, and also in Ohio last year to defeat a reproductive rights ballot measure but they failed in each state.

Ensoulment and mercy in Islam

Tenets of Islam — the second largest faith in the world — often make references to how far along a person’s pregnancy is and whether there are complications. University of Colorado Law professor Rabea Benhalim, an expert on Islamic and Judaic law, said there’s a common belief that at 40 days’ gestation, the embryo is akin to a drop of fluid. After 120 days, the fetus gains a soul, she said.

While the Quran doesn’t specifically speak to abortion, Benhalim said Chapter 23: 12-14 is considered a description of a fetus in a womb. The verses are deeply “important in the development of abortion jurisprudence within Islamic law, because there’s an understanding that life is something that is emerging over a period of stages.”

In some restrictive interpretations of Islam, there’s a limit on abortion after 40 days, or seven weeks after implantation, Benhalim said. In other interpretations, because ensoulment doesn’t occur until 120 days of gestation, abortion is generally permitted in some Muslim communities for various reasons, she said. After ensoulment, abortion is allowed if the mother’s life is in danger, according to religious doctrine.

Sahar Pirzada, the director of movement building at HEART, a reproductive justice organization focused on sexual health and education in Muslim American communities, confirmed that some Muslims believe in the 40-day mark, while others adhere to the 120-day mark when weighing abortion.

“How can you make a black-and-white ruling on something that is going to be applied across the board when everyone’s situation is different?” she asked. “There’s a lot of compassion and mercy with how we’re supposed to approach matters of the womb.”

The issue is personal for Pirzada, who had an abortion in 2018 after her fetus received a fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18 when she was 12 weeks pregnant. “I wanted to terminate within the 120-day mark, which gave me a few more weeks,” she said.

She consulted scholars and Islamic teachings before making the decision to end her pregnancy, she said, and mentioned the importance of rahma — mercy — in Islam. “I tried to embody that spirit of compassion for myself,” she said.

Pirzada, who is now a mother of two, had the procedure at exactly 14 weeks on a day six years ago that was both Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day. She said she felt loved and surrounded by people of faith at the hospital, where some health care workers had crosses marked in ash on their foreheads. “I felt very appreciative that they were offering me care on a day that was spiritual for them,” she said.

Seeing the stories of people with pregnancy complications in the period since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion has left her grief stricken. For instance, Kate Cox, a Texas woman whose fetus had the same diagnosis as Pirzada’s, was denied an abortion by the state Supreme Court in December. Cox had to travel elsewhere for care, Texas Tribune reported.

Benhalim, the University of Colorado expert, said teachings in Islam and Judaism offer solace to followers who are considering abortion, as they can provide guidance during difficult decisions.

No fetal personhood in Judaism?

In Jewish texts, the embryo is referred to as water before 40 days of gestation, according to the National Council of Jewish Women. Exodus: 21:22-23 in the Torah mentions a hypothetical situation where two men are fighting and injure a pregnant woman. If she has a miscarriage, the men are only fined. But if she is seriously injured and dies, “the penalty shall be a life for a life.”

Is IVF protected in Kentucky? Depends on whom you ask.

This part of the Torah is interpreted to mean that a fetus does not have personhood, and the men didn’t commit murder, according to the council. But this may not be a catchall belief — Benhalim noted that denominations of Judaism have different opinions on abortion.

Today, Jewish Americans have been at the forefront of legal challenges to abortion bans based on religious freedom in Florida, Indiana and Kentucky. Many of the lawsuits have interfaith groups of plaintiffs and argue that restrictions on termination infringe on their religion.

The legal challenge in Indiana has been the most successful. Hoosier Jews for Choice and five anonymous plaintiffs sued members of the state medical licensing board in summer 2022, when Indiana’s near-total abortion ban initially took effect.

Plaintiffs argued that the ban violated the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the court later let the claim receive class-action status. Several Jewish Hoosiers said they believe life begins after a baby’s first breath, and that abortion is required to protect the mother’s health and life, according to court documents.

Last month, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs have the right to sue the state but sent the request for a temporary halt on the ban back to a lower court.

While the decision was unanimous, Judge Mark Bailey issued a separate concurring opinion explaining his reasoning and criticizing lawmakers — “an overwhelming majority of whom have not experienced childbirth” — who assert they are protectors of life from the point of conception.

“In my view, this is an adoption of a religious viewpoint held by some, but certainly not all, Hoosiers,” he wrote. “The least that can be expected is that remaining Hoosiers of child bearing ability will be given the opportunity to act in accordance with their own consciences and religious creeds.”

The church formerly known as Seddon United Methodist in Maysville painted over part of its name as members decided to leave the denomination. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jack Brammer)

After decades of intense debate that led to about half of their churches in Kentucky leaving the denomination, United Methodist delegates voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to no longer forbid gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

The vote by the delegates at the United Methodist General Conference in Charlotte, N.C., was 692-51. The conference was the church’s first legislative gathering in five years.

United Methodist Church in Kentucky?losing congregations to rift over LGBTQ inclusion

The historic vote removed the church’s 1984 ban on ordaining or appointing clergy who are “self-avowing practicing homosexuals.”

Another measure winning approval forbids district superintendents — regional administrators — from penalizing clergy for performing a same-sex wedding or declining to perform one.??

Also, superintendents can not forbid a church from hosting a same-sex wedding.

The changes on ordination will take effect immediately after General Conference concludes on Friday, while the changes on marriage policy permissions will begin Jan. 1, 2025.?

The church’s news agency reported that “delegates and observers applauded after the vote.? Many hugged and more than a few cried, in a mass release of joy for those who had pushed, some for decades to make the United Methodist Church fully inclusive.”

In a Facebook Live video posted on the Kentucky Conference website, Kentucky Bishop Leonard Fairley said he knows “that some are disappointed, and some are rejoicing. But I pray that this is a way we can stay at the table and continue to work together and do the ministry and the mission of Jesus Christ.”

Fairley added, “The consultation of the district superintendents and the bishops and the local church have always been important and that does not change with this decision.”?

He appeared in the video with two of the five Kentucky clergy delegates – Tom Grieb, retired pastor from Goshen, and Tami Coleman, pastor of Hanson United Methodist Church near Madisonville.

The other clergy delegates from Kentucky, according to the Kentucky Conference, were Andrew Singh, pastor of Erlanger United Methodist Church; Iosmar Alvarez, senior pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Louisville,? and David Grout, retired minister and formerly of Florence Methodist Church.

Lay delegates from Kentucky were listed on the website as Mark Stallions, president and chief executive officer of Owen Electric Cooperatives; John R. Denham, Mason County beef cattle farmer; Michael Watts, member of Shelbyville United Methodist; Elaine Daugherty, member of Morgantown United Methodist Church, and Linda Underwood King, retired educator who is a member of Christ Church in Louisville.

Cathy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Conference, said the delegates voted by secret ballot and that she did not consider it appropriate to ask them how they voted.

The LGBTQ issue certainly has been controversial.

At a special session of the United Methodist General Conference in 2019, delegates made it possible for a church to disaffiliate for reasons of conscience around issues of human sexuality and keep its property after fulfilling certain financial obligations.?

The disaffiliation process in the United Methodist Church ended Dec. 31.

The Kentucky United Methodist Conference had 749 churches in 2019, says the Lewis Center for Church in Washington, D.C., in a report issued earlier this year.

Of them, 366 – or 49 percent – left the church, the report said.?

Of the conferences nationwide? that recorded more than 30 percent church disaffiliations, the report said, Kentucky ranked fourth highest. It trailed Northwest Texas with 81 percent disaffiliations, North Alabama with 51 percent and Texas with 50 percent.? Indiana had 30 percent disaffiliations.

The Lewis Center report did not analyze the financial impact of disaffiliations on the conferences, but it said “it can be expected to vary with the percentage and size of congregations lost. Obviously, the impact is not felt equally across conferences. Some face minimal impact while others must make major realignments.”

Asked about any belt-tightening moves by the Kentucky Conference such as reducing its number of superintendents, spokeswoman Bruce said the conference now has five superintendents. She did not say how many the conference had a year ago.

“I would not say it was in a cost-cutting move. It is just how the appointments worked out this year,” she said.??

She did note that the Lexington district and the Northern Kentucky district are being served by the same superintendent and that Kevin Burney, who is the conference’s director of ministerial services, will be superintendent for the Heartland district in the Louisville area beginning July 1 while retaining his current position.

Kentucky Methodists tally congregations lost to LGBTQ rift as a conservative alternative grows

The New York Times reported that the policy changes in the denomination could prompt departures of some international churches, particularly in Africa, where more conservative sexual values prevail and where same-sex activity is criminalized in some countries.

Before the disaffiliations, the United Methodist denomination was the third largest in the United States with a 5.4 million membership and presence in almost every county. It has about 4.6 million members in other countries, mainly in Africa.

Mike Powers, an elder in the Global Methodist Church who is serving as president pro tem of its MidSouth Provisional Annual Conference, is helping with efforts in Kentucky to attract disaffiliated churches to the two-year-old denomination. Global Methodist doctrine does not recognize same-sex marriages or the ordination of openly gay Methodists.

Powers said Global Methodist policy is to respond to requests initiated by any church, pastor or lay person interested in the new denomination but not to reach out to members and churches unless invited. He said Wednesday that more than 100 of the disaffiliated churches in Kentucky have been approved, applied or are inquiring about joining the Global Methodists. ?

The Global Methodist Church, based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said in a release that it was aware of the vote at the United Methodist General Conference but that it operates independently of other denominations, has no affiliation with any of the United Methodist decisions and does not want to comment on the actions of other religious organizations.

It added that it has more than 4,500 members worldwide.

Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign based in Louisville that advocates for gay rights in Kentucky, said of the United Methodist vote, “It’s such a wonderful move in the right direction in the tenets of the faith.”

This story has been updated with new information.

Three women challenging Kentucky's abortion law with their lawyers: From left, Aaron Kemper, Jessica Kalb, Sarah Baron, Lisa Sobel and Benjamin Potash. (Photo provided)

For Lisa Sobel and her husband, being able to have a child through in vitro fertilization, or IVF, was “a dream come true.”

“For us, this really is a joy,” Sobel, of Louisville, said. “We want for there to be other families to be able to have this joy.”

But the recent state Supreme Court ruling in Alabama defining frozen embryos as live children — effectively suspending IVF in that state — has sent shock waves through the IVF community nationwide.?

That includes Sobel and her lawyers, who believe Kentucky’s laws on abortion — one virtually identical to Alabama’s — jeopardize IVF here because they define life as starting at fertilization.

“We read the laws and saw that what happened in Alabama could happen in Kentucky,” said Aaron Kemper. “We’re in trouble.”

He and lawyer Benjamin Potash represent Sobel, the lead plaintiff of three Jewish women suing over Kentucky’s abortion laws, in part because of the potential impact on IVF. They also allege the laws violate their rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act because the abortion laws state life begins at the moment a human egg is fertilized, a Christian religious belief not shared by Jews.

In Alabama, several clinics, including one at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, stopped IVF services after the Feb. 16 ruling that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” and thereby are entitled to protection as a human life.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey late Wednesday signed a measure the Republican-controlled legislature rushed into law meant to shield health providers from prosecution or lawsuits, which could allow IVF services to resume. But critics said the measure? fails to address the state’s Supreme Court finding that frozen embryos are children and merit protection as human life, allowing likely further legal disputes.

Sobel and her lawyers say the Alabama ruling heightens the urgency for a ruling in their lawsuit which was submitted to Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards nearly a year ago for a decision. The lawsuit, asking the judge to find the laws violate Kentucky’s Constitution, was filed in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending the federal right to abortion.

“We’re waiting on a decision, that’s where we are,” Kemper said.

Claims ‘hypothetical’

The Kentucky Attorney General’s office, which is defending the abortion laws, agreed to seek a decision, or summary judgment, from the judge in a May 2023 filing, asking Edwards to rule in its favor.

It argues the laws are constitutional and said the women’s claims of harm are “hypothetical.”?

The filing, under former Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, also argues the laws have no impact on IVF. Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman, who took office in January, is now handling the case.

Coleman, in a statement, called on state officials to focus on “safeguarding access to IVF,”? which he described as “an incredible blessing for so many seeking to become parents.”

Under IVF, a woman’s eggs are extracted and fertilized in the lab to be implanted in the uterus; unused embryos may be frozen for future use, donated for research or “adoption” by other parents or discarded.

“The plain language of Kentucky’s laws makes it clear that neither IVF nor the disposal of embryos created through IVF and not yet implanted are prohibited,” the attorney general’s filing said.

The women’s lawyers disagree, saying that Kentucky’s laws explicitly state human life begins at fertilization, leaving the door open for a challenge to IVF for the potential loss or destruction of embryos.

“The previous attorney general said until he was blue in the face that IVF is not illegal,” Potash said. “It’s come to pass.”

That leaves health providers scared of lawsuits or prosecution, they said.

That’s what happened in Alabama after three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed in a fertility clinic filed a lawsuit under the state’s “wrongful death of a child” law. The high court ruled in their favor, saying state law “applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.”

The Sobel lawsuit challenges a pair of Kentucky laws that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 struck down Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. One, the “trigger law,” ended abortion upon such a decision; the other bans abortion after about six weeks, once embryonic cardiac activity is detected and before many women realize they are pregnant.

Both laws permit very narrow exceptions, allowing abortion only to save the life of or prevent disabling injury to a patient. The laws have no exemptions for rape or incest.

“Word for word, the law in Alabama is identical to the law in Kentucky,” Potash said, referring to the trigger law.

The Alabama law banning abortion even has the same title as Kentucky’s “trigger” law, the “Human Life Protection Act,” and both were passed in 2019, Potash said.

“In all likelihood, this is part of a larger concerted effort by conservatives,” Potash said.

Sobel and plaintiff Jessica Kalb both had children through IVF after struggling with fertility. A third plaintiff, Sarah Baron, was considering the procedure, said the lawsuit filed in October 2022.

A ruling in their favor would protect IVF — as well as restore the right to abortion, Potash said.

“We’re hoping we can get a ruling here in Kentucky,” he said.

The lawyers said they don’t know why Edwards hasn’t yet ruled.

Lawmakers scurry to save IVF

The potential threat to IVF has sent lawmakers scurrying to protect the procedure.

Three Kentucky lawmakers have filed such bills.

Senate Bill 373, filed by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, would protect health care providers from liability or prosecution over the loss of a human embryo.

Westerfield is a staunch opponent of abortion and has supported state laws pushed through by the legislature’s Republican supermajority that ban the procedure in almost all circumstances.

But he is an outspoken supporter of IVF.

Westerfield’s filing comes as he and his wife are?expecting triplets, he announced in January. He said on the Senate floor that they adopted and transferred embryos for the pregnancy. His 6-year-old son is an “embryo adoption” baby, he said.?

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, filed Senate Bill 301, which would protect? from “criminal liability” IVF health care providers who meet a “professional standard of care.”

And Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, filed House Bill 757, which would prohibit state or local authorities from trying to limit or interfere with reproductive technology.?

It also calls for a new provision in state law declaring that a fertilized human egg or embryo in any form outside the uterus “shall not be considered an unborn child.”

The bills follow a recent flurry of action in the Alabama legislature which has advanced bills meant to shield IVF providers following a public outcry over that state’s Supreme Court decision.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican who opposes abortion, said she supports such legislation.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat and supporter of abortion rights, last week blasted Republicans for the current predicament over IVF.

“This is what happens, though, when you embrace extremism,” Beshear said.

In the U.S. Senate, a bill to establish national protections for IVF was blocked by Republicans last week.

Potash and Kemper, the lawyers for the women seeking to overturn Kentucky’s abortion ban, said the problem with most such efforts at the state level is that they try to sidestep laws that say human life begins at fertilization.

“These people want to pass an IVF law while maintaining that a fertilized egg is a human being and I don’t see how that’s possible,” Kemper said. “I don’t see how they’re ever going to be able to enact a law that protects IVF while maintaining that a fertilized embryo is a human being.”

The best outcome to clarify things in Kentucky would be a ruling in the pending lawsuit, the lawyers said.

“We’re hoping we get a decision on our case before someone sues for wrongful death in Kentucky,” Kemper said.

Sobel said the delays are frustrating for her and others in her position considering? IVF. The procedure is expensive — costing couples tens of thousands of dollars — and takes an emotional toll, she said.

It’s especially frustrating that the decision rests largely with male officials including a judge, she said.

“Women can only have children for so many years,” she said. “The older you get the more complicated your pregnancy is.”

Gov. Andy Beshear and Lt. Gov. Jaqueline Coleman look on as Chris Hartman with the Fairness Campaign introduces the 2024 Fairness Rally in the Capitol Rotunda. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — A bill backers say is meant to strengthen religious freedom in Kentucky but which opponents say will weaken fairness ordinances in the state passed out of a House committee Wednesday despite bipartisan concerns.?

After an hour of debate, the House Judiciary Committee approved the measure 14-6.? Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, joined Democrats in voting against it. Several Republicans who voted for it said they had concerns about the bill and may change their votes on the floor.?

A few hours later, at the annual Fairness Rally in the Capitol Rotunda, LGBTQ+ advocates spoke against the bill, which garnered boos from the gathered? crowd.?

Primary Sponsor Rep. Steve Rawlings, R-Burlington, said in committee that House Bill 47 will “ensure that Kentuckians are free to live and work according to their faith without fear of being unjustly punished by their government.”?

His bill states that Kentuckians whose “religious exercise has been substantially burdened” can take legal action against others and seek various kinds of relief. This “applies to all state and local laws, administrative regulations, and ordinances,” the bill draft says.?

Opponents who testified against the measure said the bill will harm LGBTQ+ Kentuckians and is not needed.?

Bonnie Meyer, the president of the Northern Kentucky Pride Center, said with the bill “we’re stripping away the rights of LGBTQA folks” because the bill sends a message that “fairness (ordinances) don’t matter”?

Berea pastor Kent Gilbert, who spoke as a representative of the Kentucky Council of Churches, said “this bill is not helpful” because it “broadens definitions” and “makes possible the kind of discrimination that persons of integrity of every faith tradition abhor.”?

“Never once were any of our member bodies consulted about this legislation,” Gilbert said. “And I can also report to you that never once in the council that meets regularly to discuss matters that are precisely related to religious freedom have we seen an urgent need for this.”??

The debate?

Co-sponsor Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, pointed to a 2018 incident in which a Muslim woman sued the Louisville government after she was photographed at the jail without her hijab and asked to remove the religious head covering in front of men.?

The Courier Journal reported in 2019 that Clara Ruplinger was arrested after a protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Ruplinger removed her head covering in a private room in which only women were present willingly but was “embarrassed, humiliated and intimidated” when she had to remove her hijab in front of men.?

Her lawyers argued at the time that her constitutional rights to religious freedom were violated by this and by the uncovered headshot being published.?

“It doesn’t seem like there’s a compelling government interest to make her take off her hijab,” Nemes said in Wednesday’s committee. “And if you’re going to do that then it’s easy to accommodate (with) women officers only. And why would it need to be published in that way, where she doesn’t have her headscarf on? That was her religious beliefs.”?

Nemes said it was “wrong” that Ruplinger could not recover in her case and sees her case as a reason the bill is “necessary.”??

“I support our fairness ordinance,” he said. “I’d like fairness ordinances to go statewide.”???

Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, and Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill, both had questions about what could be protected as a religious right.?

“I have a concern that this would potentially undo one of the bills that we passed in 2020…which outlawed female genital mutilation,” Moser said. “As I understand … it’s a religious practice in some areas. … We also have laws against child abuse and domestic violence protections.”??

Backers promised HB47 would not undermine any of those protections.?

“There’s some people that have a religion that will do things like: ‘you have to have sex with a virgin,’” Stevenson said. “You have to do particular things and they call it a religion. Why are we now trying to give anybody the power to claim a religion to do bad?”?

Rawlings replied, “It’s not power that this bill seeks at all. It’s protections and it’s not about discrimination either. It’s about respect of all. We need to be (respectful) of all persons.”?

Louisville Democrat Rep. Keturah Herron asked specifically about a “discriminatory” case involving Sunrise Children’s Services’ refusal to place children with LGBTQ+ families. The agency cited religious freedom in a contract “standoff” with the state, The Courier Journal reported in 2021, as they argued for their right to not accept same-sex couples for foster or adoption.?

“That was a discriminatory situation,” said Herron, who in 2022 became Kentucky’s first openly gay House member. “If I wanted to go through Sunrise Services to help our young people in the state, they would have the right to discriminate and tell me ‘no,’ that they would not place a child with me.”?

Rawlings said that was “not the reason I brought the bill forward” and that “my intention was to protect people of faith to be able to practice their religious beliefs.”?

“I’m sorry that you feel that way about it,” Rawlings told Herron. “But we’re looking at a broader protection of religious rights for people across the commonwealth, that they can practice their religion according to what they believe.”?

“I do have a strong Christian faith and background,” Herron said. “However, I do think that we have to be very careful when we say that based on your religious belief that you’re allowed to discriminate against people. That is not what we need to be doing here in this commonwealth, nor across the nation. And basically, this is what this bill says.”?

An Israeli tank near the border with Gaza, Nov. 28, 2023. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Citing a rise in antisemitism and threats at synagogues across Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear announced he is establishing a task force in response.?

The task force will be under the Governor’s Office of Faith Based & Community Initiatives and will have duties such as reviewing the state of antisemitism in Kentucky, assessing Holocaust education and advising on training programs about hate crimes for law enforcement officers.?

“The Kentucky Antisemitism Task Force will help guide this administration and our entire commonwealth and make sure we’re getting it right, that everyone in our commonwealth is treated like the child of God, the human being that they are,” Beshear said. “With the task force, we are letting Kentuckians of all faiths, who may be hurting during this time say that, ‘We see you and we will keep fighting against hate.’”

Since a Hamas attack on Israel in October ignited war in the Gaza Strip, antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents have increased across the U.S.

Beshear, who was met with chants from dozens of Palestine supporters during campaign stops last month at the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville, denounced all forms of hate on Thursday — including racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.?

The task force includes public officials, religious leaders, community leaders and Lexington and Louisville police chiefs who are ex-officio members.?

Beshear recalled an incident in which Manual High School’s student publication Redeye uncovered a video produced for Kentucky State Police training that included an antisemitic symbol.?

“It’s so important that we have those that know, that experience it, that feel it, that can guide us and make sure that we’re not missing a thing,” Beshear said. “And that we get, whether it’s these training materials or our approach, that we get it right.”

Beshear thanked Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, for supporting the creation of the task force. State Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, said in a video clip during the press conference that “divisions can be used to weaken our society and turn people against each other.” Both lawmakers are Jewish.?

The Kentucky Human Rights Commission had urged creation of an antisemitism task force, reports WUKY.

The Ark Encounter is seen July 5, 2016 in Williamstown, Kentucky. The Ark Encounter is a theme park centered around a 510 foot long reproduction of Noah's Ark. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

New U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson successfully took Kentucky to court to regain tax incentives for the Ark Encounter, a 510-foot wooden replica of the biblical Noah’s Ark located off Interstate 75 in Grant County.

The state tourism cabinet had awarded the project a sales-tax rebate worth up to $18 million, but Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration withdrew the offer in 2014, saying the Ark’s builders, Answers in Genesis, had changed the project’s mission from tourist attraction to religious ministry.

The state cited website postings and statements at investors meetings to support its decision.

Johnson, a member of the Louisiana legislature at the time, was C??EO and chief counsel of Freedom Guard, a public interest law firm in Louisiana that he founded. Freedom Guard represented Answers In Genesis in challenging the state’s denial of incentives.

Johnson appeared in a 24-minute video with Ken Ham, founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, talking about his work and the lawsuit against Kentucky.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in 2016 ruled in favor of Answers in Genesis, saying the state’s exclusion of the ark from the tourism tax incentive based on its “religious purpose and message” violated the First Amendment.

Johnson was quoted at the time as saying: “The court has affirmed a longstanding principle that the Constitution does not permit a state to show hostility towards religion. The First Amendment does not allow Christian organizations to be treated like second-class citizens merely because of what they believe.”

WDRB reported earlier this year that Kentucky had agreed to pay Answers in Genesis $190,000 in legal fees in connection with the case.

Answers in Genesis describes itself as an apologetics Christian ministry, meaning it uses science to defend a literal interpretation of the Bible. Ham also founded the Creation Museum in Petersburg which teaches the Earth is 6,000 years old.

The state has put millions of dollars into road construction to improve access to the Ark, which opened in 2016.

"Midwives of the Movement" will premiere during an event beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville. (Getty Images)

“Midwives of the Movement,” a documentary about the women’s movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, will premiere Monday in Louisville.

“The women who started our movement were bold and tenacious visionaries,” said Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry. “While they found a way forward, the patriarchal forces they fought are still at work.”

In a news release, Stone said the documentary’s “heartfelt stories, painful anecdotes, profound insights and lighthearted remembrances … will inspire the next generation to continue confronting patriarchy in religious spaces.”

The release says the production team began work in late 2022 and planned to interview leaders of the movement in June 2023. “Little did they know that the documentary’s subject — challenging Southern Baptist patriarchy— would find headlines again that same month.” That’s when Southern Baptist “messengers voted to uphold decisions to disfellowship Saddleback Church and Fern Creek Baptist Church for having female pastors, and approved the first reading of a constitutional amendment to disfellowship all other churches served by women with the title of pastor.”

The premiere event will include a screening of the film, followed by a panel discussion with the film’s production team.?

It will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Broadway Baptist Church, 4000 Brownsboro Rd., in Louisville.?

To RSVP or for more information about “Midwives of a Movement,” email Meredith Stone at [email protected].

Founded in 1983, Baptist Women in Ministry, sponsor of the documentary, advocates for “the full affirmation of women in ministry and leadership in Baptist life.”

Pine Mountain Settlement School's Charlotte F. Hedges Memorial Chapel, designed by architect Mary Rockwell Hook was built 1922-24. Italian immigrant Luigi Zande, a stonemason, worked on the building. (Photo from Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections)

This story has been updated with a statement released Wednesday by Pine Mountain Settlement School.

An Appalachian arts nonprofit’s gathering at Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan County ended abruptly last weekend after local residents objected to the group’s presence in the chapel, raising concerns among attendees about their safety.

A statement issued by the Waymakers Collective says participants decided to end their annual assembly a day early “for the safety of everyone in attendance,” including the school’s staff.

The decision to leave came after “a group of white men and women in trucks and on ATVs from the surrounding” area blocked exit roads and paths and demanded that conference participants leave the chapel.

“We were shocked by this as we had rented out the entire campus of PMSS for our event and were treating the entire property with respect and in the manner we had communicated to PMSS prior to the event,” the Waymakers statement said.

Kentucky State Police and the Harlan County sheriff’s office were called to the scene Saturday but no charges or arrests were made.

Harlan County Sheriff Chris Brewer said deputies remained at the campus “for several hours out of precaution to keep the peace.” He also said his office is not conducting an investigation.

The? confrontation has already cost the school one event. Nicole Garneau, organizer of the Rebellious Performance Retreat, said she is moving the five-day immersive theater workshop from Pine Mountain Settlement School, where it had been scheduled to be held over Labor Day weekend.

“I cannot host a retreat dedicated to supporting artists working on challenging material in a place where we do not feel safe,” Garneau told the Lantern in an email.?“I will be sharing the new location of the retreat only with people who are registered.”?

A statement released Wednesday by the Pine Mountain Settlement School said that photos of the conference posted on social media, especially of the chapel, “upset some members of the local community, who interpreted this as non-Christian.” They reached out to interim director Jason Brashear and board of trustees chair James Greene who asked the Waymakers to vacate the chapel.

“The Collective agreed they would relocate the space at their next class break. However, some community members decided on their own to come to campus, entering the chapel, and blocking access to buildings and roads,” says the PMSS statement.

The statement, printed below, says the school “is reviewing its policies and procedures to ensure that this type of misunderstanding does not occur in the future and to ensure the safety of all guests, visitors, and staff. Pine Mountain will continue its tradition of being open and welcoming to all as well as to promote mutual understanding among all those it serves.”

Founded in 1913 and set on 800 acres, the Pine Mountain Settlement School is a national historic landmark. It once served as a boarding school for young Kentuckians; its residence and dining halls and other buildings still host visitors and events throughout the year, including wildflower and fall color weekends.

Brashear, the interim director, said 5,000 students visited last year to hike, study nature and learn square dancing and crafts.

The Kentucky Arts Council provides operating support to the school “from state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts,” according to the PMSS website.

The Kentucky Natural Lands Trust, which raises money to preserve Kentucky forests and natural habitats, has held artists weekends at the campus. The land trust, Kentucky songwriter Daniel Martin Moore and 40 musicians teamed up in 2019 to produce a double album titled “Pine Mountain Sessions” recorded in the school’s chapel which benefited KNLT and the school.

The Waymakers Collective, which says it has distributed more than $1 million in grants to Appalachian artists and arts organizations, describes itself as “a multiracial group that is also inclusive of queer and trans people.”?

The Waymakers’ statement said that for its annual gathering the chapel had been set up as space “for rest and quiet reflection” and “healing.”

“The set up of the room included pillows, meditation cushions, soothing lights, plants, crystals, and some artwork including a painting that included an ‘Om’ symbol,” the statement said.

“It was a spa-like environment to help facilitate restorativeness, rest, and reflection.”?

“Our coordinator specifically asked if there were any special instructions that should be honored in the chapel,” the statement says. “The only instructions given were not to move the pews as the floors were recently resurfaced. Our team requested two tables in the chapel to display aromatherapy oils and other items for the participants, and upon our arrival, the tables were set up?by the PMSS staff.”

On Saturday, a few conference participants were “gathered in the chapel to rest: taking naps or sitting in quiet reflection or prayer” when two men and a woman who were not part of the group entered and sat apart watching, said the statement.

More people arrived, said the statement, and conference attendees were told that they were “desecrating a Christian space” amid demands that they leave, according to the statement, which also said the local residents used “their vehicles to block the roads and paths to exit.”

The settlement school staff intervened and separated the two groups, said the statement.

“The group of people who entered the chapel stayed for over an hour, often lingering on the outside of where we were gathered as though to tell us we were not welcome and were being watched,” the statement said.

The statement says they later learned that Facebook posts had accused the group of “desecrating the chapel and other horrible allegations that simply are not true.”

The weekly Tri-City News, also of Harlan County, in an article posted on its Facebook page, reported that Bledsoe resident Tate Napier said that he was part of a group of “eight or nine” who entered the chapel “because we wanted to make sure the House of The Lord wasn’t being disrespected.”?

Napier is quoted as saying, “The people in the chapel said they were doing nothing wrong, and I asked if they were in there to worship Jesus, and a few started raising their voices at me, so I told them to just get their stuff — that we weren’t there to argue, and I even helped them gather their things and pack them to their cars. After that all happened, the state police and sheriff deputies showed up, and they agreed to stay out of the chapel, but then, ultimately, they decided to leave because they said they felt unsafe.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Napier posted on his Facebook page that he had received a lot of requests from reporters and journalists — the Lantern sent him a direct message via Facebook — seeking interviews but that he had decided to “leave it” with the interview he gave “a local journalist” on Saturday.

“The news and social media are tools the devil uses the most to stir up division, and I don’t want to partake in anymore,” he said.

Garneau, an actor who has performed at the settlement school, said the decision to cancel the Labor Day weekend performance retreat had left her angry and sad.

“I have attended many wonderful gatherings at Pine Mountain Settlement School, many of which were dedicated to social and racial justice. Rural Eastern Kentucky needs a place like PMSS where people can come together to make Kentucky, and the world, a better place,” she said.?

“I am angry and sad that some members of the Harlan community decided to violate a sacred space for healing, and in so doing, traumatize an entire community of folks gathered at PMSS. I fear this will have repercussions for years to come.”?

The Waymakers Collective statement ended with an invitation to the settlement school staff and leadership to “think, with us, about how to ensure Pine Mountain Settlement School continues to be the inclusive, beautiful, and hospitable place it has historically been for many of us — including how best to communicate with potential guests what your boundaries are for the use of your campus.”

Bishop Leonard Fairley (Photo submitted)

As hundreds of United Methodist churches in Kentucky left the denomination over LGBTQ+ issues, some members disappointed with the disaffiliation wanted to remain United Methodists.

Despite the rift, Kentucky United Methodist Bishop Leonard Fairley remained optimistic about the denomination’s future, predicting that United Methodists “will show the love of God by starting new faith communities throughout Kentucky.”

Fairley on Sunday will help celebrate the first new faith community to officially join the United Methodist fold, Antioch United Methodist Church in Erlanger.

Fairley will preach at the 10 a.m. “chartering service” at the Receptions Event Center on 1379 Donaldson Highway. The media have been invited.

Most of Antioch’s 75-member congregation belonged to other United Methodist churches but were not in the voting majority when those churches decided to leave the United Methodist Church (UMC). It took at least a two-thirds vote of a church’s participating members to disaffiliate. Those not seeking disaffiliation basically were left without a church.

Other churches may follow the route of Antioch, said Cathy Bruce, communications director for the Kentucky United Methodist Conference, noting that Northern Kentucky was “especially hit hard by disaffiliations.”

In Western Kentucky, she said, more than 50 people last month, also upset that their churches disaffiliated from the UMC, attended the launch of the United Methodist Church of Trigg County in Cadiz, but it has not yet scheduled to charter with the denomination.

“Sometimes it takes up to a year to get a church chartered,” Bruce said.? “Antioch has been meeting since March but just now is getting chartered.” Chartering involves making sure the church understands the various guiding points and beliefs of the United Methodist Conference.

Bruce also said another church has plans to form in the Lexington area made up of United Methodists who want to remain United Methodists.

History of the split

The disaffiliation movements started in January 2020 with a proposal to split the denomination over “fundamental differences” concerning homosexuality.

The disaffiliations picked up momentum with a decision by the UMC to allow congregations to keep their property if they voted by two-thirds of participating members to disaffiliate.

The exodus of Kentucky United Methodist churches was confirmed in June when delegates to the Kentucky Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church approved requests from 286 churches to leave the denomination that was formed in 1968. About 80 churches had already left in recent years.

Departing congregations ranged from Kings Mountain in Lincoln County, whose members voted 2-0 to disaffiliate, to Centenary in Lexington, where the vote was 511-45 in favor of disaffiliation.

A total of 369 United Methodist churches in the state conference with about 84,000 members decided not to leave the denomination. The Kentucky Conference of the UMC covers most, but not all, of the state.

In the Kentucky conference, more than 100 of the almost 400 congregations that have left the United Methodist Church have been approved, applied or are inquiring about joining the Global Methodists, a more conservative Christian denomination.

Global Methodist doctrine does not recognize same-sex marriages or the ordination of openly gay Methodists. Neither does the United Methodist Church, which, during years of debate surrounding LGBTQ+ issues, has repeatedly upheld its stance against gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

But the issue has been debated in the United Methodist Church for years.

That debate came to a boil in 2016 after hundreds of United Methodist clergy came out as gay and a Western regional conference elected the first openly lesbian bishop, sparking the conservatives’ push to leave the church.

United Methodists may revisit the LGBTQ+ debate next year in Charlotte at the worldwide General Conference, the denomination’s highest legislative body, the first since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But for now, the state conference will celebrate the addition of Antioch in Northern Kentucky.

The Rev. Caleb Wheat, who previously served at St. James United Methodist Church in Bowling Green with about 175 members, became pastor od Antioch at the end of June. St. James decided to stay with the United Methodists.

Wheat, 31, said this Sunday’s worship service at Antioch will include a special liturgy for chartering churches.? It will be preceded at 9 a.m. by a church “charge conference,” at which church officers will be formally elected to serve as representatives of the newly formed church.

“It is an exciting time for everyone involved with Antioch,” said Wheat.? “We especially want to thank Bishop Fairley for his guidance. Folks here have remained in the faith and in God’s love for all.? They came together after a tough situation to accomplish this together.”

Operation Save America Director Jason Storms told a gathering of religious, anti-abortion attendees that the church must take the lead to end abortion, which could happen with civil war. (John McCosh/Georgia Recorder)

An all-male panel of anti-abortion religious leaders from around the country met Friday night to discuss the strategies that should be used to end abortion in every state at any stage of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape and incest, and with criminal punishment for the pregnant person in line with existing criminal penalties for murder, which includes the death penalty.

The panel was part of a week-long series of events hosted by Operation Save America, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim religious group that wants all Americans to follow “God’s law” and their interpretation of the Christian gospel. Many of the?events were held?in Douglasville, Georgia, at Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, which?broke away?from the Southern Baptist Convention for supposed acceptance of liberal social justice views regarding race and gender. Tuesday through Friday, the group started its mornings by?protesting outside?of A Preferred Women’s Health Center, an abortion clinic near Atlanta.

Friday’s speakers included Wisconsin-based Operation Save America Director Jason Storms and former OSA director Rusty Thomas, along with Arizona-based?End Abortion Now?communications director Zachary Conover, Georgia Right to Life President Ricardo Davis, and Gabriel Rench, a member of the extremist?Christ Church?in Moscow, Idaho.

Speakers focused on equal protection bills in state legislatures?

The theme of OSA’s national event was unity, and highlighted divisions within anti-abortion circles over what they described as the proper approach and response to legislation that seeks to limit or entirely restrict abortion procedures. The moderator of the panel, Derin Stidd, opened by asking, “Why do you all hate women?” to which the men laughed.

Rench then joked about not giving the microphone to Conover and said, “We don’t give him a voice like women,” then added, “Bad joke.”

The comments were in jest, but in line with remarks from OSA speakers throughout the week, including another comment from Rench, who said the church was wrong to allow women to be preachers.

On Thursday, anti-Islam speaker Raymond Ibrahim said, “If you look at a country, and the best they can come up with for a president is a woman, there’s something wrong about that. That doesn’t mean women aren’t smart or capable, I believe that, but if the very best — the crème de la crème — is a woman, that tells me something about the men when it comes to positions of authority and leadership.”

The panel focused on legislation they call “equal protection” bills, such as Georgia’s House Bill 496, also called the?Georgia Prenatal Equal Protection Act, which was introduced in February but did not advance in the state’s House of Representatives. An “equal protection” bill, by their definition, is one that adds criminal penalties to a pregnant person for the intentional termination of a pregnancy at any stage, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The law would make an exception if the abortion was performed to prevent the pregnant person’s “imminent death or great bodily injury.”

Storms said OSA has advocated for similar bills in?more than a dozen states, including Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Kentucky and Oklahoma. So far, no states have passed an “equal protection” bill, but several, including Georgia, did pass what anti-abortion advocates call “heartbeat bills” that ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant. Those who advocate for “equal protection” bills call themselves “abolitionists,” co-opting language from the movement to abolish slavery, while the “pro-life” community has advocated for more politically expedient bills like six-week bans. Storms and other panelists called the six-week bans weak, even though they expressed understanding of political environments that make “equal protection” bills unlikely to become reality.

Rench said that is the case in Idaho, where many members of the state legislature are part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The church has taken an?official position?that rape and incest exceptions are acceptable, and bills that have not included those exceptions, such as?one introduced?by OSA-endorsed?Sen. Scott Herndon of Sandpoint, have gone nowhere in the Idaho Legislature. Christ Church and its followers have taken an approach they dubbed?“smashmouth incrementalism,”?which acknowledges that change can be achieved through gradual reformation and repentance in the country’s culture.

But Rench said he intends to keep working with Herndon and others to bring equal protection bills back in the next legislative session to keep pushing for it. Davis, president of Georgia Right to Life, said his organization will push for their bill again in the next session as well, and said he’s confident they’ll get it done the next time around.

How is abortion going to end? Maybe with civil war, speaker says?

Thomas, who was a longtime director of Operation Save America before Storms, said incremental steps like heartbeat bills were “a lie from the pit of hell” from the very beginning, but the organization didn’t used to be politically involved because there was too much compromise and too much that needed to be changed.

Thomas said it wasn’t until pastor Matthew Trewhella, who co-founded the Milwaukee-based group Missionaries to the Preborn and is?Storms’ father-in-law, wrote “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates” that he felt like there could be progress. The book references history and biblical theology to argue that governments deemed “tyrannical” and ungodly can and should be defied. Trewhella has said he has spoken to at least 11 state legislatures across the country about the book.

“That was the first time in my life I knew we had solid rock to stand on to fight this battle politically,” he said. “That was the game changer.”

Conover’s organization, End Abortion Now, creates model legislation that grants legal personhood to fertilized eggs, which would limit in-vitro fertilization procedures, and assigns penalties to people who have abortions in addition to doctors who provide them. Some of his legislative efforts have been defeated by organizations that are against criminal penalties for pregnant people.

“It’s a dirty little secret of the pro-life industry: Their heretical teaching that has informed the types of laws they’ve supported for five decades, the lie that women should be allowed to kill their own children with immunity and impunity because they themselves are victims of abortion,” Conover said. “It is a lie that says that they are never legally culpable, however willfully or intentionally they carry out the act of taking the life.”

Regardless of the legislative strategy, the panelists agreed changing the culture of America to take on a Christian biblical worldview, which will require all pastors to take the same position on abortion as their own.

“We must see that the church plays that role culturally, to create that social tension. That’s the standard, that’s the ideology,” Storms said. “But that’s when we have to say, ‘Well, how does that flesh out in the real world?’ It doesn’t always look so pretty when we actually see that applied. How is abortion going to end? I don’t know, maybe it’s going to be a civil war, maybe it’s going to be a whole variety of other means.”

States Newsroom reproductive rights reporter Sofia Resnick contributed to this report.

Hindman Methodist Church in Knott County joined the new Global Methodist Church. (Photo courtesy of Hindman Methodist Church)

Jacob Wilson, 28, was excited about starting as the pastor of a church in southeastern Kentucky on June 25. Both he and his new congregation in Hindman had left the United Methodist Church in opposition to gay clergy and same-sex marriage — and joined the new Global Methodist Church.

Subscribing to conservative views of the Bible, Global Methodists are a Christian Protestant denomination claiming 1,700 congregations and 1,200 clergy around the world.

In Kentucky, more than 100 of the almost 400 congregations that have left the United Methodist Church have been approved, applied or are inquiring about joining the Global Methodists, said Mike Powers, a retired United Methodist pastor in Lexington who is spearheading efforts to attract disaffiliated churches to the new denomination.?

The exodus of Kentucky Methodists was confirmed earlier this month when delegates to the Kentucky Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church approved requests from 286 churches to leave the denomination that was formed in 1968. About 80 churches had already left in recent years.?

Departing congregations ranged from Kings Mountain in Lincoln County, whose members voted 2-0 to disaffiliate, to Centenary in Lexington, where the vote was 511-45 in favor of disaffiliation.

Wilson’s 75-member Hindman Methodist Church voted 42-1 to leave the United Methodist Church.?

Split helping spawn a new denomination

Wilson resigned in May as reporter/editor of The Anderson News in Lawrenceburg to move with his wife, Taylor Wilson, to the Knott County seat. He formerly had been an associate pastor at Versailles United Methodist Church and pastor at Camargo in Montgomery County and Mt. Carmel in Fleming County.? He was with the United Methodist Church for about six years and then departed, last attending New Harvest Assembly of God in Frankfort.??

“The Global Methodist Church is a very loving denomination and welcomes everyone,” said Wilson. “The United Methodist Church has had too many disagreements.”?

“I do not bear ill will for the LGBTQ community. Gays and lesbians will be welcome at Hindman, a church that follows the Bible,” Wilson said.

Global Methodist doctrine does not recognize same-sex marriages or the ordination of openly gay Methodists. Neither does the United Methodist Church, which, during years of debate surrounding LGBTQ+ issues, has repeatedly upheld its stance against gay clergy and same-sex marriage. That debate came to a boil in 2016 after hundreds of United Methodist clergy came out as gay and a Western regional conference elected the first openly lesbian bishop, sparking the conservatives’ push to leave the church.?????????

350 remaining churches will start ‘new faith communities,’ says bishop

Remaining in Kentucky are about 350 United Methodist Church congregations with more than 84,000 members.

United Methodists may revisit the LGBTQ+ debate next year in Charlotte at the worldwide General Conference, the denomination’s highest legislative body, the first since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.?

The disaffiliation movements started in January 2020 with a proposal to split the denomination. The disaffiliations picked up momentum with a decision by the United Methodist Church to allow congregations to keep their property if they voted by two-thirds of participating members to disaffiliate.

Despite the church losses, Leonard Fairley, resident bishop of the Louisville Area, which includes the Kentucky Conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church, is optimistic about the denomination’s future.

“Our remaining members are ready to step into a new reality with a leaner, nimbler desire to ‘Show the Love of God’ – which just happened to be the theme of our 2023 gathering,” Fairley said in a letter to Kentucky media. Fairley also wrote, “We will show the love of God by starting new faith communities throughout Kentucky.”

Emotional and sad

Powers, 70, who recently was named president pro tempore for the Global Methodist Church’s MidSouth Region that includes all of Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, mid-to eastern Tennessee and two counties in Georgia, said the church is “a fellowship of like-minded people.”

Powers has served as a pastor in Hindman, Science Hill, Harrodsburg, Morehead, State Street in Bowling Green and at First Church in Lexington.

Citing passages from the Bible’s New and Old Testaments, the Global Methodist website says:

• “Human sexuality is a gift of God that is to be affirmed … within the legal and spiritual covenant of a loving and monogamous marriage between one man and one woman.”?
• “We are saddened by all expressions of sexual behavior, including pornography, polygamy, and promiscuity, that do not recognize the sacred worth of each individual or that seek to exploit, abuse, objectify, or degrade others.”
• “While affirming a scriptural view of sexuality and gender, we … are committed to being a safe place of refuge, hospitality, and healing for any who may have experienced brokenness in their sexual lives.”?

Both Powers and Wilson said the disaffiliation process has been emotional and sad but believe the Global Methodist Church is the way to go.

“I respect my friends in the United Methodist Church who do not agree with me.? They are not my enemies,” Powers said. “This is a great honor for me after retiring to work on this. I just want to connect people to the love of Jesus.

“Everything we have been doing for the Global Methodist Church in the last seven months has been voluntary.? We think what we are doing is that important.

“I consider all this is about my children’s children’s children.”

The church formerly known as Seddon United Methodist in Maysville painted over part of its name as members decided to leave the denomination. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jack Brammer)

On a cold morning last winter, some of the 50 to 75 members of a church on Forest Avenue in Maysville used pens in their small, but beloved, house of worship for a most symbolic action.

They carefully used the sharp points to cut out the word “United” on the front of their hymn books and then colored in the empty space.

All that was left to read on the hymnals was Seddon Methodist Church.

To further highlight that Seddon was leaving the United Methodist Church, light red paint was used to obscure the word “United” on the awning over the church’s front door.? It now reads “Seddon Methodist Church.”? Also, a large metal cross with a flame — the symbol of the United Methodist Church — was removed from the church and its van.

Seddon, which started preaching and teaching the Bible in 1872 and joined the United Methodist Conference in 1968, is one of scores of churches in Kentucky and the nation that has disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church over a long debate about gay rights.

Last December the Kentucky Conference announced that 57 of its churches had disaffiliated. Over the last four years, 80 have left the United Methodist Church in Kentucky. About 663 with more than 150,000 members remain in the state as of early this year. Among Christian denominations in Kentucky, United Methodists trail Southern Baptists with 904,352 members and Catholics with 356,064 members.

Disaffiliation will be very much on the minds of delegates to the Kentucky Methodists’ Annual Conference that begins Sunday and runs through Wednesday at the Owensboro Convention Center.?

The conference will review more church requests to exit the United Methodist Church. It is to approve them by the end of June.

In that group will be Seddon. Also, Centenary in suburban Lexington with its more than 3,700 members will be on the list. ?First United Methodist Church in downtown Lexington with its 1,643 members did not vote on disaffiliation and decided to stay with the United Methodist Church.

Similar scenarios are playing out across the nation.? Emotions run high, especially for longtime members of churches.

“It’s a very sad time for our denomination,” said Lu-Ann Farrar, a member of Lexington’s First United Methodist Church.

Her minister, Todd Nelson, said he understands that the total of disaffiliated churches in Kentucky since 2019 will rise to about 380 once this year’s requests are approved.?

“That will be about half of the United Methodist churches in Kentucky since the voting to disaffiliate began a few years ago,” he said.?

?“The split in the church is here,” he said. “We’re just seeing now what the count will be of those that leave and those that stay.”

Leonard Fairley, resident bishop of the Louisville Area, which includes the Kentucky Conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church, did not reply to numerous questions over the last four months from the Kentucky Lantern to him and his staff in their offices in Crestwood about the disaffiliation process and the reasons for it.

He first asked the Lantern to submit its questions in writing but did not respond to them though he has pledged transparency.?

In his statement in a report to conference delegates in Owensboro, Fairley said, “Sisters and brothers in Christ, this is a historic Annual Conference. One that brings with it a sense of both grief and joy as we mourn the loss of our sisters and brothers to disaffiliation.?

“However, we cannot and must not lose ourselves in the hopelessness of despair. We must exhibit the courage to live into the audacious promises of God that come when we love one another.”

The Rev. Taylor W. Burton Edwards, director of Ask the United Methodist Church, in Nashville, Tennessee, did provide information to the Lantern about the disaffiliation process.?

How disaffiliation came about

Disaffiliation in the United Methodist Church started with a rift over LGBTQ issues that has been continuing for years. The debate on disaffiliation has taken a circuitous route.

Even though the denomination has repeatedly voted to keep its traditional stance on marriage as only between a man and a woman, conservatives complain that progressives in the denomination have repeatedly ignored the rules.

The debate reached a boiling point in 2016 after hundreds of United Methodist clergy across the nation came out as gay and when a Western regional conference elected the first openly lesbian bishop.

In 2016 at the denomination’s worldwide meeting, held every four years and known as the General Conference, a special commission was formed to review the church’s policies on sexuality.

That sparked creation of a conservative advocacy group known as the Wesleyan Covenant Association, which invited United Methodist churches to join to push for stricter policies on sexuality.

In a special session of the General Conference in 2019, delegates did not change the denomination’s position that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. But traditionalists still were not satisfied.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association said “a parting of ways is the only viable way forward.”??

The General Conference signed off on a plan at the 2019 session to allow churches to disaffiliate based on views on sexuality.

Disaffiliation votes have been occurring over the last few years. They are to end this year.

The United Methodist Church has not held a General Conference since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next General Conference is in 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2020, the denomination had about 6.3 million members and 30,543 churches in the United States. Worldwide, it had nearly 13 million members and 43,409 churches.

Highlights of the disaffiliation process

A church vote must be held within 120 days after the district superintendent calls for the church meeting. The decision to disaffiliate must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the professing members of the local church present at the vote.

The local church must pay to the United Methodist Church any unpaid apportionments for the 12 months prior to disaffiliation, as well as an additional 12 months of apportionments.?

The disaffiliated church also must pay its share of the pension liability for active and retired clergy, as well as its share of medical liability for retired clergy and surviving spouses.

It’s possible for the congregation to retain much or all of its church property and assets. There have been some court cases across the nation involving disputes between disaffiliated congregations and the United Methodist Church.

Some members who disagree with their church’s vote have moved to different churches. Any United Methodist minister who wants to stay with the United Methodist Church but presides over a disaffiliated church can be transferred.

Disaffiliation is complete only when all payments due are made in full, the annual conference has approved the motion of disaffiliation and the effective date of disaffiliation set by the annual conference is reached.?

?A disaffiliated church

Grace on the Hill Community Church, off Cumberland Falls Highway in Corbin, was one of the first large churches in Kentucky to leave the United Methodist Church in June 2022. It has a membership of about 360.

It is now a non-denominational church. Among its beliefs spelled out on its website is that “the practice of homosexuality and cohabitation outside of marriage is not compatible with Scripture or the will of God.”

“This is a conservative church as is much of Southeastern Kentucky,” said its pastor, Scott Wilson. He said even an openly gay member of the church voted to disaffiliate. He declined to identify the person.

“We do invite everyone to come to our church and worship the Lord,” said Wilson. “We love everybody. There’s no place for hating anyone but we believe the Bible tells us how we should live.”

?List of Kentucky churches that disaffiliated last year

The official list of Kentucky churches leaving the United Methodist Church this year won’t be known until late June or so.?

The Kentucky Annual Conference, at a special meeting last December, voted 332 to 29 to accept the requests of 57 churches ?to disaffiliate.

According to its website, Bishop Fairley told the group, “There is nothing easy about separating from the people who have shared a significant part of your life.”?

He mentioned shared ministries and events, such as working side by side on mission teams for major disasters in Kentucky, a journey to the Holy Land, camping ministries, and helping the United Methodist Children’s Homes and the United Methodist retirement communities, adding that “there is so much we have done together in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“It will always be my prayer, somehow that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can still together be about joyfully worshiping Christ, offering salvation, by offering help, healing and hospitality to all God’s children,” Fairley said.

He also said that despite the grief and sorrow, he believes that “God is up to something supernaturally amazing and mysteriously extraordinary,” and that the United Methodist Church’s best years still are ahead.

Here are the 57 departing churches, by district, in Kentucky announced last December.??

More are to come.

Bluegrass: Early’s Chapel, Mortonsville, Mt. Zion (Shakertown), Perryville.

Heartland: Cedar Grove, Overdale.

Kentucky East: Belfry, Buchanan Chapel, Cannonsburg Trinity, Catlettsburg, East Fork, Hardy, Olive Hill, Tollesboro.

Lexington: Bybee, Gunns Chapel, Herrington, Preachersville, Ruddles Mill, Shiloh.

Northern Kentucky: Fosters Chapel, Goddards Chapel, Melbourne, Milton, Morningview, Owenton, Piqua, Shiloh.

Owensboro: Big Springs Corners, Fairview.

Pennyrile: Bethel, Dixie, McMurray Chapel, Stuart Chapel.

South Central: Barnetts Creek, Boyds Creek, Campground, Center, Christies Chapel, Coffeys Chapel, Cosby, French Valley, McKendree Chapel, New Bethel, Old Zion, Park, Russell Springs, Shiloh, Walkers Chapel.

South East: Corbin Trinity, Fellowship, Macedonia, Pleasant View, Science Hill, Twin Branch, Whitesburg, Williamsburg First.