LEXINGTON, Ky. — Almost a year to the day after Rep. Lindsey Burke gave birth to twins — one dead, the other alive — she walked out of a legislative committee meeting in Frankfort.

Burke, one of three Kentucky Democrats who walked out that day, was protesting a bill she said shamed the choice to abort a nonviable pregnancy.

Burke herself made that choice in October 2022 when she and her husband ended a pregnancy they’d planned for and wanted in order to protect the life of their second child. For her family, Burke was exacting what control she had over an otherwise impossible situation.

The decision to walk out of the committee meeting March 7 in response to Republican Rep. Nancy Tate’s House Bill 467, the “Love Them Both Part II Act,” was one she saw similarly: Exacting a sense of control over a situation in which she had little.

Republicans hold a veto-proof majority in both legislative chambers, rendering Democrats virtually powerless. Burke knew that this committee — made up of four Democrats and 15 Republicans — was going to advance the bill regardless of her act of protest or the will of her Lexington constituents.

In the hallway outside the committee room, Burke told a gaggle of reporters the bill was “an insult to grieving parents everywhere.”

In the nearly two years since Kentucky Republicans’ hard-fought efforts to ban abortion became law — a measure with no exceptions for rape, incest or nonviable pregnancies like Burke’s — the conversation over reproductive health care has only become more divisive.

Burke has shared snippets of her pregnancy and abortion publicly, but never in complete detail. On a chilly Friday in February, she shared her story for the first time with the Herald-Leader.

“I chose to be public about our struggles because I’ve learned that being authentic is less isolating than hiding my pain and humanity,” Burke said.

Relief, then dread

...continued

©2024 Lexington Herald-Leader. Visit at kentucky.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.