KENTUCKY — A circuit court judge on Friday granted the ACLU a temporary injunction on the trigger law that would restrict abortion access in Kentucky, effectively allowing abortion to remain legal in the state as the lawsuit plays out in court.

Judge Mitch Perry handed down the opinion Friday afternoon, saying there is “a substantial likelihood” that Kentucky's new abortion law violates "the rights to privacy and self-determination” protected by Kentucky's constitution.

The injunction issued in Louisville allows the state's only two clinics to continue providing abortions while the case is litigated.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican running for governor, said he'll soon take the case to the state appeals court.

"[Perry's] suggestion that Kentucky's Constitution contains a right to abortion is not grounded in the text and history of our state's governing document," Cameron said in a statement released shortly after the decision came out. 

Kentucky’s trigger law was meant to ban abortions as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but Perry issued a restraining order in June blocking the ban.

“Once again, the courts have rightly stopped Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s relentless efforts to ban abortion, which would have devastating consequences for Kentuckians. No one should be forced to carry a pregnancy against their will or flee the state to access essential health care," leaders from the ACLU said in a statement. "Kentuckians have a right to abortion under the state constitution, and we’ll continue fighting for that right so that every person in the commonwealth can get the care they need.”

The ACLU of Kentucky calls it a temporary, but important victory. "I think that relief is probably the reaction that we led with when this ruling hit our inboxes,” said Amber Duke, the organization's interim executive director. “The alternative to this would be Kentuckians who no longer want to be pregnant being forced to remain pregnant against their will or having to flee the commonwealth of Kentucky in order to seek care."

Addia Wuchner, who heads Kentucky Right to Life, told Spectrum News 1 that her organization will continue to fight. “Normally, we’re arguing between is there a hierarchy of rights between the mother and her child,” said Wuchner. "But here, he believes that there’s a hierarchy of rights between an industry, a business and the child, and we would disagree with that to the nth degree."

Republican State Senator Whitney Westerfield, an outspoken proponent for the abortion bans in question, blasted the ruling on Twitter, saying it "can't possibly have a reliable basis post-Dobbs."

"Eager to see what contortions were worked to justify keeping a lawful statute from being enforced," he added.

Kentucky’s trigger law contains a narrow exception allowing a physician to perform an abortion if necessary to prevent the death or permanent injury of the pregnant woman. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has denounced that law as “extremist,” noting it lacks exceptions for rape and incest.

Attorneys for abortion providers have argued that enforcing abortion bans would cause irreparable harm. 

“If abortion is banned in Kentucky, these medical, social, and economic harms will be forced onto the around 3,000 to 4,000 pregnant individuals who seek access to this healthcare in the Commonwealth each year, and their families,” said a filing from the plaintiffs.

“These laws prohibit what the General Assembly has determined is the unjustified taking of unborn human life,” said Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s response to the plaintiffs’ motion for temporary injunction. “So every day that these laws are not enforced is a day in which unborn children of the Commonwealth perish.”

Perry cited the principles of privacy and equal protection in the injunction ruling.

"The fundamental right for a woman to control her own body free from governmental interference outweighs a state interest in potential fetal life before viability," Perry wrote. “The court finds any harm the defendants may suffer is outweighed by the interests of the plaintiffs."

Perry also wrote in his ruling that the trigger ban is “an arguably unconstitutional delegation of authority,” since it depended on another “jurisdictional body” — the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kentuckians are set to vote in November on a constitutional amendment that would ensure there are no state constitutional protections for abortion.