Kansas voters face one of the most important questions in state history on Aug. 2.
They’ll decide if the Kansas Constitution will make women second-class citizens, with fewer rights than men.
They’ll decide if a woman’s most intimate and personal health decisions should be handed to politicians.
They’ll decide if Kansas policy will be dictated by theocrats and authoritarians, without regard to an individual’s personal beliefs, faith or morality.
The voters’ answer to these questions must be no.
We urge a no vote on the Kansas constitutional amendment.
Right to personal autonomy, human dignity
In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court said the state’s Bill of Rights establishes a fundamental right to abortion, independent of the U.S. Constitution.
“At issue here is the inalienable natural right of personal autonomy, which is the heart of human dignity,” the justices said. “It encompasses our ability to control our own bodies, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination.”
The proposed so-called “Value Them Both” amendment overturns that idea. “The constitution of the state of Kansas does not … create or secure a right to abortion,” the amendment says. “The people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion.”
Supporters of the amendment say that language doesn’t ban the procedure. That’s true, but deeply misleading: The amendment clearly enables major abortion restrictions. It’s the critical permission slip lawmakers must have to enact the abortion laws they desire.
And no one should doubt — no one — that the Legislature will attempt to ban almost all abortions in Kansas, for anyone, if the amendment passes, subject only to whatever federal laws might still allow the procedure for some patients. There is no other reason for putting this question on the ballot.
Anti-abortion groups in Kansas, and their friends in the Legislature, did not fight Roe v. Wade for nearly 50 years only to settle now for merely keeping abortion clinics clean. Look at Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri, and you can see the future in Kansas if the amendment prevails.
No pro-life legislator we’re aware of has stepped forward to say new abortion restrictions will be off the table forever in Kansas if the amendment passes. That silence should speak volumes to voters.
No. All evidence suggests the Kansas anti-abortion community won’t be content simply to renew “commonsense” regulations, which were passed with Roe’s protections in place. Now that Roe is gone, legislative restraint will go as well.
Rejecting the amendment does not remove the Legislature’s authority to pass abortion laws, by the way. In its 2019 opinion, the Kansas Supreme Court said abortion restrictions are still allowed, if Kansas “has a compelling interest and has narrowly tailored its actions to that interest.”
