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Kentucky voters returned Democratic state Sen. Karen Berg to the Kentucky Senate in the November 3 midterm elections, handing a new term to the Louisville physician whose 2024 remarks suggesting child sex dolls could give pedophiles a “release” drew national outrage.
Berg, who represents the 26th District covering parts of Jefferson and Oldham counties, defeated Republican Everett C. Corley by 30,081 votes to 14,009, according to the Kentucky State Board of Elections — about 68 percent of the vote.
The remarks that have followed Berg since 2024 came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February of that year, as lawmakers considered House Bill 207, a bill to make it a felony to possess a child sex doll. Berg told the committee she had searched online the night before about child sex dolls and what she called “MAPs, minor-attracted persons.”
“There are what they call ‘MAPS,’ Minor Attracted Persons, and the limited amount of research that’s done on these dolls, guys, suggest that they actually – for people who are attracted to minors – that these dolls actually decrease their proclivity to go out and attack children,” Berg said at the hearing. “That it actually gives them a release that makes them less likely to go outside of their home.”
Berg added that the research did not support the same conclusion for people attracted to adults. She conceded the research was “not very good” and “not comprehensive” but described it as “conclusive.”
The comments drew swift condemnation from Republicans in the state, and Berg issued a statement the following day saying she regretted it if her question in committee had not conveyed her concern. “As a mom and a physician, I am, of course, deeply concerned with the harm of pedophilia, and I regret if my question in committee didn’t convey that,” she said. “I voted in favor of House Bill (HB) 207 to outlaw child-sex dolls, a stance that aligns with my commitment to safeguarding the well-being of our youth and holding perpetrators accountable.”
House Bill 207, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Dietz, a Republican from Edgewood, makes it a Class D felony to knowingly own or sell a child sex doll — defined as a doll, mannequin or robot with the features of a minor and intended for sexual use — punishable by one to five years in prison. Importing, trafficking or promoting the dolls is a Class C felony. The bill also criminalized the use of artificial intelligence to create sexual images of children.
Law enforcement officials who testified for the bill told lawmakers that people who use the dolls often go on to harm real children. Attorney General Russell Coleman urged the Senate to pass it without delay, and Jeremy Murrell, a deputy commissioner in the attorney general’s office, testified that people who “utilize or abuse these dolls also go on to be hands-on offenders, if they haven’t done so already.”
The bill passed the Senate unanimously, 38-0, on March 6, 2024, and was signed into law by Gov. Andy Beshear, taking effect July 15, 2024. The law was challenged in court this year by a Union County man charged under it; a judge rejected the challenge in October 2026, ruling the dolls were conduct, not protected expression.
Berg, a physician for more than 30 years, first won the seat in a special election in June 2020, becoming the only Jewish member of the Kentucky Senate. She was first elected to a full term in 2022.