Advocacy organizations affirm deep divisions on health care rights of Kansans
OVERLAND PARK — Advocacy organizations with diametrically opposing views on abortion rights Friday marked the two-year anniversary of Kansas voters’ rejection of an anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution by offering distinct perspectives on the aftermath of that landslide decision.
The Republican-led Kansas Legislature had worked with anti-abortion lobbyists to craft the proposed amendment and then decided the vote would occur during the August 2022 primary election. After it was set in stone, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that for about 50 years had provided a national foundation for protection of abortion rights.
Abandonment of that legal precedent contributed to rejection of the Kansas constitutional amendment, which was opposed by 59% of voters in the state, and helped spark a broader campaign to protect women’s reproductive rights and a family’s ability to make private health care decisions.
“This week marks the second anniversary of a historic vote,” said Ashley All, president of Kansas Coalition for Common Sense. “Voters made clear in August 2022 that Kansans deserve the right to privacy and to make our own personal medical decisions about contraception, fertility, pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion. Elected leaders should listen.”
Danielle Underwood, spokeswoman for Kansans for Life, reflected on defeat of the 2022 amendment that was a centerpiece of KFL’s lobbying campaign. She alleged, without evidence, that Kansas voters were “deeply misled” by individuals and organizations that said Kansas health clinics providing abortion services would remain heavily regulated if the amendment failed.
“Now the truth is unfolding,” Underwood said. “Abortion clinics are being allowed to operate without safety and sanitation standards or even medical oversight while the number of women traveling to Kansas for abortions skyrockets.”
In July, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed its 2019 decision that women in the state had a fundamental constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The justices struck down a state law banning a second-trimester abortion method. In a separate decision from the state Supreme Court in July, a collection of state regulations imposed on abortion providers and clinics were declared unconstitutional because the Kansas law exceeded requirements for medical professionals providing comparable health services.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported a record number of out-of-state abortion patients in 2022 that was attributed to enhanced restrictions on the procedure in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and other states. The number of nonresident patients doubled to nearly 8,500 from 2022 compared to 2021. The number of Kansas abortions in 2022 provided to residents of the state fell to 3,843 — a decline of nearly 100 from the previous year.
Two years later
In an Overland Park coffee shop on Friday morning, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of the 3rd District in Kansas and six members of the Kansas Legislature who also embraced reproductive rights discussed the constitutional amendment vote and how the political landscape had shifted since then.
Davids, who is seeking reelection but doesn’t have a primary opponent, said it was ironic U.S. House members who argued it was important to return jurisdiction over abortion to the states by overturning Roe v. Wad had continued to introduce federal legislation to restrict access to abortion.
“Every single one of us knows that our state has spoken loud and clear,” Davids said. “To continue to have to push back against these things at the federal level is not only frustrating, it’s unacceptable. It flies in the face of the voters’ will. I’m always going to fight for protecting access to the full range of reproductive health care. Now, we have to talk about things like IVF, contraception and abortion.”
Davids endorsed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee abortion access in all states across the country.
State Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, a Lenexa Democrat, said she recalled celebrating the vote two years ago that protected the state Supreme Court decision that said the right of women to end a pregnancy was embedded in the state constitution’s Bill of Rights.
She said states with abortion bans had placed physicians in jeopardy while women’s lives were left to hang in the balance.
“We’ve had the two years to watch what’s happened in the states with dangerous abortion bans,” Hoye said. “We have seen husbands pleading for care for their wives. We’ve seen women having miscarriages in hospital bathrooms being denied life-saving care. Kansas women can help by continuing our big fight and setting a model to those states.”
Several of the Democrats at the coffee shop raised objections about the anniversary statement of Kansans for Life, the state’s most prominent anti-abortion group.
Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, said the commentary from Kansans for Life incorrectly characterized the regulatory climate for abortion clinics.
“There are standards in place,” she said. “Once again, it’s the fearmongering. Obviously, the people out there — the general public — don’t know the standards. It’s very easy to make those claims.”
Valuing women
State Rep. Mari-Lynn Poskin, D-Lenexa, said she recalled the Legislature’s deliberations in 2021 about language of the proposed anti-abortion constitutional amendment. She was struck by votes of Republican legislators who rejected attempts to amend the text to provide an exemption to protect the life of a pregnant woman.
“I witnessed every single Republican, in both chambers, vote ‘no’ to exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother in the August 2nd amendment,” she said. “That’s when I knew that they did not, in fact, value women.”
Underwood, the Kansans for Life spokeswoman, said the development of 23 pregnancy resource centers in Kansas and $2 million appropriated by the Legislature to the centers showed there were people in Kansas who would “never abandon women and babies” and would serve as a counterweight to the “profit-driven abortion industry.”
In the last two state legislative sessions, about 20 bills were introduced each year that would in some way limit opportunities for families to make decisions about reproductive health.
During the 2024 legislative session, at least 110 House or Senate members voted against abortion-rights legislation. Sixty-six of those lawmakers voted against the will of voters in their districts as expressed in the 2022 amendment to the constitution.
State Sen. Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat who serves as the Senate’s minority leader, said the flood of anti-abortion legislation would continue in the upcoming 2025 session.
“I think next year they will be more emboldened,” she said. “They want to ban abortion and take away women’s rights. I think the majority of people who are bringing these bills want to eliminate contraception.”
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
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