During a trip to Owensboro on Thursday, Rep. Brett Guthrie said he supports the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision last week. He also agreed with their ruling Thursday that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
Regarding the ruling on abortion laws, Guthrie said he agrees the decision should ultimately go back to the states. He referenced when Rep. Nancy Pelosi presented a bill that would have codified Roe v. Wade up to the ninth month nationwide.
“I don’t think Congress should be saying you should be able to get an abortion any point in time for any reason whatsoever up until the baby’s born,” Guthrie said. “I think that there are reasonable limits that need to be placed on it. I’m pro-life and I think it should be up to the people to decide and up to the general assemblies of the various states.”
Kentucky previously enacted a “trigger law” to effectively ban all abortions upon the Supreme Court issuing a ruling that puts the decision of abortion into the hands of each state. However, that trigger law is on hold after a restraining order was issued Thursday by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry. Judges in four other states — Florida, Texas, Utah and Louisiana — have issued rulings temporarily halting laws banning or limiting abortions.
Guthrie said he has yet to see the Kentucky court’s opinion on why the law was put on hold.
“It’s kind of hard when the Supreme Court says the General Assembly has the right to do it and then another court steps in and prevents them from doing that,” he said.
On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court also made a ruling restructuring the abilities and powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The court said that the Clean Air Act does not give the EPA broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming, according to the Associated Press.
Guthrie noted the ruling declares that businesses can’t be held accountable for their emissions of greenhouse gases after they complied with the law. He used the example that an organization that is based in Louisville cannot come back and sue an Owensboro organization if they are compliant with the law.
“What [the Court] is saying is Congress is the place to set the policy for the legislative branches in the individual states are the places to set this policy,” he said. “They said it in the EPA [ruling] they really said it in Roe v. Wade [ruling], because they didn’t get rid of a woman’s right to abortion they just said it was to be decided by the individual states.”
