by Rachel Mipro, Kansas Reflector
January 24, 2024
TOPEKA — With federal abortion protections overturned, state legislatures now have the chance to enact significant change, said Kansas City, Kansas, Archbishop Joseph Naumann during a Wednesday morning anti-abortion mass at the Topeka Performing Arts Center.
Naumann urged young people in attendance to vote and advocate against abortion with their peers before speaking against President Joe Biden, who is a practicing Catholic but has supported abortion rights and protections.
“Sadly, President Biden is the perfect example of the religiously and ethically incoherent, claiming to believe that human life begins at conception and personally opposing abortion, while doing everything within his power to promote and institutionalize abortion not only in the U.S. but around the world,” Naumann said.
Following the mass, Catholic Kansans merged with other anti-abortion groups and marched to the Statehouse waving signs as part of the annual Kansas March and Rally for Life.
At the steps of the Statehouse, Naumann’s message of state-level change was echoed by multiple Republican state legislators, who vowed to pass more anti-abortion bills this legislative session.
“This year, you’re going to see more from us,” said House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita. “And you’ll see more overrides because that’s what it will take.”
During the rally, Jeanne Gawdun, a spokeswoman for Kansans for Life, said the state was “blessed” to have so many anti-abortion lawmakers.
“We have a very critical election coming up,” Gawdun said. “Right now, we are so blessed to have a supermajority of pro-life legislators in both chambers, and we will need that with two more years of Gov. Kelly, the most pro-abortion governor in the state’s history. We expect more vetoes of our legislation. So come this fall, we’re going to need everybody to get involved in the campaigns for these pro-life legislators so they can come back and work again to protect women and babies.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Kansas has become one of the few states left in the region that protects abortion rights. State law allows abortions up to 22 weeks after gestation and in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.
The Kansas Supreme Court in 2019 determined the state constitution’s right to bodily autonomy extends to the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
Voters in August of 2022 overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to ban abortion without exception.
Despite consistent statewide support for abortion rights, Republican lawmakers have continued to introduce anti-abortion legislation. During the 2023 legislative session, the Republican supermajority was able to override Kelly’s veto of the “Born-Alive” bill and an “abortion reversal” bill, both of which became law.
The “reversal” law requires abortion providers to tell patients it might be possible to reverse a medication abortion, although this concept is based on junk science and has been known to cause hemorrhaging. The requirement is one of several abortion restrictions currently blocked by a Kansan judge.
The “Born Alive” law bans physicians from euthanizing infants who survive abortions, though there is no evidence that this happens. Medical experts have characterized the legislation as a scare tactic against abortion.
In Kansas, the law was implemented July 1 as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, following a two-thirds majority override of Kelly’s veto in the Legislature.
“What a glorious veto override it was,” Hawkins said.
Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said the “tragedy” of the Kansas Supreme Court decision had led to increased legal scrutiny of abortion measures. He said he was “shocked” by Kelly’s veto override of the legislation and her characterization of the bill as “misleading and unnecessary.”
The two said they were prepared to override Kelly’s vetoes this legislative session.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
