Activists on both sides of abortion fight make final push ahead of Tuesday vote in Kansas
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Kansas abortion vote: What to know
The state is the first to vote on abortion rights after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Here’s what to know about the vote and the abortion debate in Kansas.
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Ahead of the primary in Kansas, activists on both sides of the abortion debate knocked on doors in the Kansas City area to spread the word about the importance of Tuesday’s pivotal vote.
On Tuesday, voters will decide on a constitutional amendment that effectively overturns a 2019 state supreme court ruling that found a state-level right to an abortion. While the amendment doesn’t ban abortion it would clear the way for state lawmakers to impose new restrictions on abortion, including a total ban.
Kansas will be the first state in the nation to vote on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, removing the federally protected right to abortion before viability.
In Shawnee, about 50 volunteers gathered outside of the Mercy & Truth medical clinic, wearing purple shirts and holding purple signs that read “VOTE YES!” and “Protect Women & Babies.”
“The people of Kansas want to have a say in the future of how we govern ourselves,” said Danielle Underwood, a spokeswoman for Kansans for Life.
Less than 10 miles away in Kansas City, Kansas, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids spoke to a group of about 50 abortion rights advocates before they canvassed throughout neighborhoods.
“Our concern is about patients having full autonomy to make private medical decisions with their families, not with the government,” said Emily Wales, Planned Parenthood Great Plains president and CEO. “It’s also about all those other issues: Will contraception be at risk? Will people be scared about medical emergency care? I think those are real.”
The vote has drawn national attention as an early indicator of how voters in red states respond to messaging on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision.
Two weeks before the election day, a Kansas City-based pollster released the first public poll data and predicted that Kansans would narrowly pass the amendment.
Proponents of the amendment have refused to answer questions about whether or not they would seek a ban on abortion if the amendment passes but, in audio obtained by the Kansas Reflector a woman identifying herself as a field director for Value Them Both, the main vote yes group, told a crowd of Reno County Republicans that there were plans to pass a bill criminalizing abortion.
On Saturday, Kansas state Sen. Beverly Gossage, a Eudora Republican, said, “I don’t know of any senator — not one — that believes in outlawing all abortion.”
But Wales is concerned about the restrictions lawmakers would enact. Just minutes after the Supreme Court’s decision, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt initiated the state’s trigger law, banning nearly all abortions.
Kansas’ southern neighbor, Oklahoma, outlawed abortion after six weeks of pregnancy And in recent months, the pregnancy health clinic Trust Women in Wichita — one of four abortion providers in the state — saw a large influx of patients from Oklahoma.
“We are concerned, of course, that every time you take out any provider within the system, it is more and more strained,” Wales said. “Even before the fall of Roe, we didn’t have enough providers in the region who needed us. So when you take out any local care for Kansans, they too will be traveling to (surrounding) states if they can afford to get there.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2022 at 1:46 PM.
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