In the first abortion-related election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Kansas overwhelmingly defeated a constitutional amendment that could have led to the banning of abortion. Republicans scheduled the vote for August, hoping for a low turnout in a state where Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden by nearly 15 percentage points in 2020 In the midst of a heat advisory, a historically high turnout defeated the amendment. According to MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, about a fifth of the “no” vote came from Republicans.
"This is truly a historic day for Kansas and for America. Freedom has prevailed," said Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, which helped lead the opposition to the amendment. "Thank you to everyone who took part in this movement."
However, the fight is not over for anti-abortion organizations, several of which issued statements claiming that misinformation by the No side, confused voters. Value Them Both, a group leading the vote-yes effort, said on Twitter, “This outcome is a temporary setback, and our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over.”
A day before the election, Ann Reed, writing at Operation Rescue’s website, noted: “Kansas is at the forefront of the abortion debate today.” In the piece, Operation Rescue’s notorious president Troy Newman made his position quite clear: “The abortion cartel relishes its power to destroy innocent human life – all in the name of ‘reproductive healthcare. They will spend millions of dollars to hold onto their so-called ‘right’ to kill. Constitutional amendments like Value Them Both remove from their blood-stained hands the power to legally kill.”
Mallory Carroll, spokeswoman for SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement: “Because of tonight’s results, Kansas could shortly become home to unrestricted abortion on demand – even late-term abortion without limits, paid for by taxpayers. The people and their elected legislators now have no recourse to use the tools of democracy to enact laws that reflect consensus.”
She added: “The stakes for the pro-life movement in the upcoming midterm elections could not be higher, and there will be many more factors in play,” she said. “It is critical that pro-life candidates go on offense to expose the extremism of Democrats’ policy goals for nationalized abortion on demand paid for by taxpayers.”
The New York Times reported that, “The defeat of the ballot referendum was the most tangible demonstration yet of a political backlash against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that had protected abortion rights throughout the country. The decisive margin — 59 to 41 percent, with about 95 percent of the votes counted — came as a surprise, and after frenzied campaigns with both sides pouring millions into advertising and knocking on doors throughout a sweltering final campaign stretch.”
In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court “struck down some abortion restrictions and found that the right to an abortion was guaranteed by the State Constitution. That decision infuriated Republicans, who had spent years passing abortion restrictions and campaigning on the issue. They used their supermajorities in the Legislature last year to place the issue on the 2022 ballot.”
Over the years, Kansas has been a battleground for anti-abortion forces. As The Times reported, “In 1986, a Wichita abortion clinic was attacked with a pipe bomb. In 1993, a woman who opposed abortion shot and injured Dr. George Tiller, one of only a few American physicians who performed late-term abortions. In 2009, another anti-abortion activist shot and killed Dr. Tiller at his Wichita church.”
“I think [the Kansas vote] is an example a lot of people who identified themselves as pro-life looking at what happened since Roewas overturned,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said. “Looking at the extremism, looking at the 10-year-old girl being chased from the state, looking at the Texas attorney general fighting for the right to let mothers die on the operating table, to tear away the protections that the federal government is trying to put in place to protect moms to have a choice whether they die on an operating table or not.”
“You look at all of the extremities,” he added, “and now again in another Republican state legislature trying to give the right to members of a rapist’s family to sue a rape victim for $20,000 unless she has a forced pregnancy. This is a rapist’s bill of rights that Republicans are passing, a rapists’ bill of rights for forced child birth on children.”
Mini Timmaraju, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement late Tuesday that "at a time when reproductive freedom is under unprecedented threat across the country, Kansans said loud and clear at the ballot box: 'We've had enough.'"
"Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November," Timmaraju added. "Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom."
But is it a winning issue? That’s a question that political observers are asking. Is the Kansas vote is a one-off, or is it the shape of things to come in November? Will the abortion issue translate to pro-choice candidates in the midterms? As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, “Certainly a large part of the reason that the proposed amendment failed was that it was largely separate from partisan politics and political candidates. There is a big difference between asking people to weigh in on an issue and asking them to weigh in on a candidate who embodies a range of issue positions.
“When you are voting on an amendment that would erode the availability of abortion, that’s the only consideration. When you are voting on a governor or a senator, you’re voting on their support for or opposition to abortion – and a galaxy of other things.”