Anti-abortion demonstrators place signs inside the Statehouse ahead of the Jan. 15, 2025, State of the Judiciary address. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A group of Kansas Republicans want to outright ban and criminalize abortions in the state despite state constitutional protections.
Two bills in the Kansas House of Representatives — one prohibiting all abortions except those needed to save the life of a mother and another making it a crime to perform abortions — were introduced Wednesday and referred to the House health and human services committee.
The bills are largely symbolic in nature, as the right to obtain an abortion in the first 21 weeks of pregnancy is enshrined in the Kansas Constitution’s right to bodily autonomy. Similar legislation filed in past sessions didn’t receive a hearing.
A majority of Kansas voters in 2022 rejected an attempt to amend the state’s constitution to allow an abortion ban, which was put on voters’ ballots in response to an earlier Kansas Supreme Court decision that established the right to terminate a pregnancy. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, the Kansas Supreme Court in July 2024 affirmed abortion as a constitutional right, overturning a 2015 law, signed by then-Gov. Sam Brownback, that criminalized the method used for most second-trimester abortions.
Six Republican legislators are sponsoring House Bill 2009, which would ban most abortions, and five of them are sponsoring House Bill 2010, which would make the act of performing an abortion and “the destruction of a fertilized embryo” felonies.
Rep. Brett Fairchild, a farmer from St. John, Rep. Scott Hill, a farmer from Abilene, Rep. Samantha Poetter Parshall, a school board member in Paola, Rep. Bill Rhiley, a businessman and former educator in Wellington, Rep. Kevin Schwertfeger, a cattleman and crop consultant in Reno County, and Rep. Joe Seiwert, a business owner in Reno County, are co-sponsoring the ban bill. All except Hill are co-sponsoring the crime bill.
The crime bill was written to abolish abortion in the state of Kansas and protect “the lives of unborn persons with the same criminal and civil laws protecting the lives of born persons by repealing provisions that permit willful prenatal murder or assault,” the bill reads.
The ban bill also prohibits the sale or distribution of abortifacients like mifepristone, and it creates an avenue through which someone can bring a lawsuit against another person for violating the provisions of the ban.
Ashley All, president of the Kansas Coalition for Common Sense, said the Republicans’ time would be better spent “joining Democrats in supporting families by driving down costs and making life more affordable for everyone.”
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Kansans already voted overwhelmingly to support reproductive rights. Republican politicians need to stop interfering in our private medical decisions and trying to ban abortion,” All said.
This article was republished with permission from the Kansas Reflector. The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit online news organization serving Kansas. For more information on the organization, go to its website at www.kansasreflector.com.
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