TOPEKA, Kan. Kansas’ highest court on Friday struck down state laws that regulate abortion providers more strictly than other health care providers and banned a common second-trimester procedure, reaffirming its position that the state constitution protects access. to abortion.
The Kansas Supreme Court’s 5-1 rulings in two separate cases signal that the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature faces stricter limits on regulating abortion than Republican lawmakers thought and suggests that other restrictions could fall. Lawsuits in state trial courts already challenge restrictions on medical abortion, the ban on doctors using teleconferences to meet with patients, rules on what doctors must say to patients before an abortion, and the requirement that the patients wait 24 hours after receiving information about a procedure to terminate the pregnancy.
“We stand by our conclusion that section 1 of the Bill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution protects a fundamental right to personal autonomy, which includes the right of a pregnant person to terminate a pregnancy,” Justice Eric Rosen wrote for the majority in striking down the prohibition of dilation and evacuation, also known as D&AND.
The panel concluded that the state did not meet “its evidentiary burden to show that the Challenged Laws advance its interests in protecting maternal health and regulating the medical profession as it relates to maternal health,” Judge Melissa Standridge wrote in the opinion of the majority regarding the clinic’s regulations.
Judge KJ Wall did not participate in any of the rulings Friday, while Judge Caleb Stegall was the only dissenter.
Stegall, who was appointed by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, is widely considered the court’s most conservative member.
The Kansas high court declared in a 2019 decision that access to abortion is a matter of bodily autonomy and a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. Voters in August 2022 too decisively rejected a proposed amendment that would have explicitly stated that abortion was not a fundamental right and allowed state legislators to strongly restrict or prohibit it.
State lawyers had urged the judges go back on the 2019 decision and defend the two laws, which were not applied due to the legal battles over them. The state attorney general, appointed by Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, argued that the 2022 vote did not matter in determining whether the laws could be upheld.
The court disagreed and handed abortion rights advocates a major legal victory.
Kansas has become an outlier among states with Republican-controlled legislatures since the U.S. Supreme Court issued your decision Dobbs in June 2022, allowing states to completely ban abortion. This has led to an influx of patients from states with more restrictive laws, especially Oklahoma and Texas. The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, designed last month that about 20,000 abortions will be performed in Kansas in 2023 or 152% more than in 2020.
Kansas does not prohibit most abortions until the 22nd week of pregnancy, but requires minors to obtain written consent from a parent or guardian. Other requirements, including the 24-hour waiting period and what the provider must tell patients, have been suspended. A lower court is considering a challenge against them from suppliers.
Abortion opponents argued before the August 2022 vote that failing to change the state constitution would doom long-standing restrictions enacted by former GOP governors. Kansas saw a flurry of new restrictions under former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback from 2011 to 2018.
Health and safety rules aimed specifically at abortion providers were enacted in 2011. Supporters said they would protect women’s health — although there was no evidence provided at the time that documented that such rules in other states led to better health outcomes. Suppliers said the real goal was to force them out of business.
The other law was the first of its kind in the country when enacted in 2015 and deals with a certain type of dilation and evacuation, or D&And, procedure carried out in the second trimester.
According to statistics from the state health department, around 600 D&E procedures were performed in Kansas in 2021, accounting for 5% of the state’s total abortions. About 88% of abortions in the state occurred in the first trimester. The state has not yet released statistics for 2023.
OD&Banning the procedure would have forced providers to use alternative methods that the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group, said were riskier for the patient and more expensive.
The 2019 ruling came in the early stages of proceedings over the 2015 ban. The justices kept the law on hold but sent the case back to court to further examine the ban. A trial judge said the law could not be upheld.
Three of the court’s seven justices have joined the court since the 2019 ruling. All three were appointed by Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, a strong supporter of abortion rights, but one of the three Judge KJ Wall, withdrew from cases.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
