The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday issued a ruling in several cases, striking down two laws designed to protect preborn children from abortion. The court ruled 5-1 to overturn of both these laws — a decision that led its sole dissenting justice, Justice Caleb Stegall, to warn that the state is heading toward “a legal regime of unrestricted access to abortion.”
The first law overturned was one enacted to prohibit dilation and evacuation (D&E) dismemberment abortions, and the second would have regulated abortion facilities by requiring them to meet special licensing requirements and safety standards. As the Associated Press noted, “Neither law struck down by the court had been enforced because of the lawsuits against them by abortion providers.”
The law prohibiting D&Es had been on hold since 2015, when a lawsuit was filed against it. The most common abortion procedure during the second trimester, this brutal, violent procedure is typically a days-long process in which the abortionist dilates the woman’s cervix and then uses a Sopher clamp to dismember the still-living preborn baby limb from torso before the skull is crushed.
The abortion facility regulation law was in place to ensure that abortion businesses maintain high standards, thereby reducing the risks to women — common-sense legislation, given how many women are routinely injured at abortion facilities, especially in the state that was the home of the notorious abortionist George Tiller, who was murdered in 2009.
In its ruling, the court noted that the state’s constitution protects abortion, and therefore the pro-life laws — held up in the courts for years — cannot stand. The Court’s decision was influenced by a 2022 ballot measure in which the state’s voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure that would have protected preborn lives in the state’s constitution. As pro-life groups warned, lawmakers and the courts are now using that vote to repeal many common-sense pro-life laws.
READ: Women weren’t ‘unsafe’ in America before ‘Roe’… and they’re not unsafe now
“It hurts to say, ‘we told you so,’ to the many Kansans who were misled by the abortion industry’s assurances that it would still be ‘heavily regulated’ in our state if voters rejected the 2022 amendment,” stated Danielle Underwood, a spokesperson for Kansans for Life.
“Kansas voters made it loud and clear in 2022: The right to abortion must be protected,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This is an immense victory for the health, safety and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access….”
