2018 Kentucky Revised Statutes CHAPTER 311 - PHYSICIANS, OSTEOPATHS, PODIATRISTS, AND RELATED MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS .720 Definitions for KRS 311.710 to 311.820 and other laws.
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311.720 Definitions for KRS 311.710 to 311.820 and other laws.
As used in KRS 311.710 to 311.820, and laws of the Commonwealth unless the
context otherwise requires:
(1) "Abortion" means the use of any means whatsoever to terminate the
pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with intent to cause fetal death;
(2) "Accepted medical procedures" means procedures of the type performed in the
manner and in a facility with equipment sufficient to meet the standards of
medical care which physicians engaged in the same or similar lines of work,
would ordinarily exercise and devote to the benefit of their patients;
(3) "Cabinet" means the Cabinet for Health and Family Services of the
Commonwealth of Kentucky;
(4) "Consent," as used in KRS 311.710 to 311.820 with reference to those who
must give their consent, means an informed consent expressed by a written
agreement to submit to an abortion on a written form of consent to be
promulgated by the secretary for health and family services;
(5) "Family planning services" means educational, medical, and social services
and activities that enable individuals to determine the number and spacing of
their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved;
(6) "Fetus" means a human being from fertilization until birth;
(7) "Hospital" means those institutions licensed in the Commonwealth of Kentucky
pursuant to the provisions of KRS Chapter 216;
(8) "Human being" means any member of the species homo sapiens from
fertilization until death;
(9) "Medical emergency" means any condition which, on the basis of the
physician's good-faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition
of a pregnant female as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her
pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of
substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function;
(10) "Medical necessity" means a medical condition of a pregnant woman that, in
the reasonable judgment of the physician who is attending the woman, so
complicates the pregnancy that it necessitates the immediate performance or
inducement of an abortion;
(11) "Partial-birth abortion" means an abortion in which the physician performing the
abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and
completing the delivery;
(12) "Physician" means any person licensed to practice medicine in the
Commonwealth or osteopathy pursuant to this chapter;
(13) "Probable gestational age of the embryo or fetus" means the gestational age
that, in the judgment of a physician, is, with reasonable probability, the
gestational age of the embryo or fetus at the time that the abortion is planned
to be performed;
(14) "Public agency" means the Commonwealth of Kentucky; any agency,
department, entity, or instrumentality thereof; any city, county, agency,
department, entity, or instrumentality thereof; or any other political subdivision
of the Commonwealth, agency, department, entity, or instrumentality thereof;
(15) "Vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus" means deliberately and
intentionally delivers into the vagina a living fetus, or a substantial portion
thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure the physician knows will kill
the fetus, and kills the fetus; and
(16) "Viability" means that stage of human development when the life of the unborn
child may be continued by natural or life-supportive systems outside the womb
of the mother.
Effective:June 29, 2017
History: Amended 2017 Ky. Acts ch. 64, sec. 1, effective June 29, 2017. -Amended 2005 Ky. Acts ch. 99, sec. 587, effective June 20, 2005. -- Amended
1998 Ky. Acts ch. 426, sec. 541, effective July 15, 1998; ch. 578, sec. 1,
effective July 15, 1998; and ch. 614, sec. 1, effective July 15, 1998. -- Amended
1982 Ky. Acts ch. 342, sec. 2, effective July 15, 1982. -- Created 1974 Ky. Acts
ch. 255, sec. 2.
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