Abortion In Kansas
Abortion in Kansas is legal. 49% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. An abortion may be performed at 20 or more weeks postfertilization (22 weeks after the last menstrual period) only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health. This law is based on the assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point in pregnancy. The state also had detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement by 2007. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication-induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics were in place by 2013. In 2015, Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, a common second-trimester abortion procedure. State laws about abortion have been challenged at the Kansas Supreme Court and US Supreme Court level.
The number of abortion clinics in the state has been declining in recent years, going from 23 in 1982 to fifteen in 1992 to four in 2014. There were 7,219 legal abortions in 2014, and 6,931 in 2015. Almost half were obtained by out-of-state residents. The state has seen anti-abortion rights violence, including the kidnapping of a doctor in 1982 and the killing of Doctor George Tiller in 2009.
Terminology
The abortion debate most commonly relates to the induced abortion of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The terms elective abortion and voluntary abortion are defined by Williams Obstetrics as "the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons."
Pro-life advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".
Context
Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link. At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening. The study singled out Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kansas as being the most restrictive states that year, followed by Arkansas and Indiana for second in terms of abortion restrictions, and Florida, Arizona and Alabama in third for most restrictive state abortion requirements.
According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health. These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states with legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.
History
Legislative history
In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens.
The state passed a law in the 2000s banning abortions before 22 weeks because they alleged that a fetus can feel pain at that point in development. The state was one of 23 states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement. Some states, including Kansas, have passed laws requiring abortion providers to warn patients of a link between abortion and breast cancer, and to issue other scientifically unsupported warnings. In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics. An anti-abortion bill was introduced and referred to committee in February 2013. The bill was presented to the Kansas House in March 2013. The bill was known as House Bill 2324, "An act prohibiting an abortion of an unborn human individual with a detectable fetal heartbeat." One outspoken advocate of such bills is Mark Gietzen, who tried to gather as many signatures as possible in order to get then-Governor Sam Brownback to convene a special session of Congress in order to consider the bill. Gietzen also advocated for a fetal heartbeat law to be passed during a special session of the Kansas legislature, to be held on September 3, 2013. HB 2324 died in committee in May 2014. Kansas lawmakers approved sweeping anti-abortion legislation (HB 2253) on April 6, 2013 that says life begins at fertilization, forbids abortion based on gender and bans Planned Parenthood from providing sex education in schools. The state was one of six that tried to ban abortions in 2013. The state legislature was one of five states nationwide that tried, and failed, to pass a fetal heartbeat bill in 2014.
In 2015, Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, a common second-trimester abortion procedure. But the new law was later struck down by the Kansas Court of Appeals in January 2016 without ever having gone into effect. In April 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision, and ruled that the right to abortion is inherent within the state's constitution and bill of rights, such that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned and the federal protection of abortion rights is withdrawn, the right would still be allowed within Kansas, barring a change in the state constitution. In mid-May 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22. In 2019, women in Kansas were eligible for pregnancy accommodation and pregnancy-related temporary disability as a result of abortion or miscarriage if their employer had four or more employees. Employers were required to offer unpaid leave upon request and employees could not be punished for requesting it.
Judicial history
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. In 1983's Planned Parenthood Association of Kansas City v. Ashcroft, the US Supreme Court said the state could require two doctors be present when a third-trimester abortion was being performed and that the abortion providers for third-trimester abortions could be required to submit a pathology report to the state. The US Supreme Court did allow for only one doctor in the case of an emergency. In 2018, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled on the state's 2015 abortion ban.
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by eight, going from 23 in 1982 to fifteen in 1992. In 2014, there were four abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 97% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 56% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were two Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 644,117 women aged 15 – 49 of which two offered abortion services.
In 2013, Julie Burkhart opened a clinic in Wichita called Trust Women Wichita, part of Trust Women Foundation. Burkhart was a colleague of the murdered Dr. George Tiller, and by 2013 she had taken over Tiller's clinic following his murder. Because of state law, providing abortions to women in the area added costs, both financial and time, for both the clinic and women seeking abortions.
Statistics
In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. In 1990, 276,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2010, the state had zero publicly funded abortions. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were 270 total abortions, fifty abortions for black women aged 15–19, sixty abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and forty abortions for women of all other races. In 2014, 49% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
| Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
| West North Central | 57,340 | 48,530 | 48,660 | 14.3 | 11.9 | 11.9 | –16 |
| Iowa | 6,970 | 6,040 | 5,780 | 11.4 | 9.8 | 9.4 | –17 |
| Kansas | 12,570 | 10,310 | 10,630 | 22.4 | 18.3 | 18.9 | –16 |
| Minnesota | 16,180 | 14,910 | 14,660 | 15.6 | 14.2 | 13.9 | –11 |
| Missouri | 13,510 | 10,540 | 10,810 | 11.6 | 8.9 | 9.1 | –21 |
| Nebraska | 5,580 | 4,360 | 4,460 | 15.7 | 12.1 | 12.3 | –22 |
| North Dakota | 1,490 | 1,330 | 1,290 | 10.7 | 9.6 | 9.4 | –13 |
| South Dakota | 1,040 | 1,040 | 1,030 | 6.8 | 6.6 | 6.5 | –4 |
| Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by
out-of-state residents |
Year | Ref | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
| Kansas | 3,779 | 6.7 | 96 | 7,219 | 12.9 | 184 | 49.6 | 2014 | |
| Kansas | 3,637 | 6.5 | 93 | 6,931 | 12.4 | 177 | 49 | 2015 | |
| Kansas | 3,484 | 6.2 | 92 | 6,790 | 12.2 | 178 | 49.8 | 2016 | |
| ^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births | |||||||||
Abortion rights views and activities
Protests
Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.
Pro-life views and activities
Activities
In 1991 in Wichita, Operation Rescue blockaded 3 abortion clinics over a 6-week period as part of an effort they called the "Summer of Mercy." This was one of three large pro-life protests that received extensive media coverage.
Violence
In August 1982, three men identifying as the Army of God kidnapped Hector Zevallos, a doctor and clinic owner, and his wife, Rosalee Jean, holding them for eight days and released them unharmed. In 1993, Shelly Shannon, an Army of God member, admitted to the attempted murder of Dr. George Tiller. Law enforcement officials found the Army of God Manual, a tactical guide to arson, chemical attacks, invasions, and bombings buried in Shelly Shannon's backyard.
Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009 as Tiller served as an usher at a church in Wichita, Kansas. Witnesses said that Roeder walked up and put a gun to Tiller's head before shooting him. As a consequence of his death, his family closed the clinic where he performed abortions. The murder was one of the first occasions in the United States where a clinic closed as a result of an abortion clinic related murder.
Footnotes
- ^ According to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade:
Likewise, Black's Law Dictionary defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal".(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.