Since 1997, the abortion rate in Kansas has fallen nearly 50% by enacting bi-partisan common sense life-saving legislation. Prohibiting tax-funded abortions and practices such as late term and partial birth abortion, as well as ensuring medically accepted standards and physician licensing to protect mothers and pre-born children, have advanced a strong culture of life in Kansas. Now, however, politics have spilled over into our courts, threatening decades of progress to value life, protect women, and strengthen families. We can remove politics from the court, but only with your help.
In April of 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court fundamentally changed the issue of abortions in Kansas. When reviewing bipartisan restrictions on the horrific practice of dismemberment abortion, the Kansas Supreme Court “discovered” a “right” to nearly unregulated abortion in our 1859 State Constitution. Such a decision endangers previously enacted protections for mothers and their pre-born children, even though those provisions were legally passed in accordance with the majority of Kansans.
Now, a clear and clarifying state constitutional amendment is the only safeguard to restore current lifesaving abortion limits, and to remove politics from the court. The amendment would reverse the court’s highly political ruling by clearly stating that there is no right to unrestricted abortion in Kansas. It will ensure that Kansans through their elected officials, may continue to enact common sense life-saving limitations on the abortion industry such as: prohibiting late-term and taxpayer funded abortions, requiring parental consent for minors seeking an abortion, protecting women by requiring accepted medical safety standards at clinics, providing women information on health risks and the baby’s development, and requiring a 24 hour waiting period.
The abortion industry is already attempting to move more clinics in to Kansas, remaking it into a destination and haven for nearly unfettered abortion. They are also waging a campaign of confusion to halt efforts to reverse the ruling and keep any life-saving limits on their industry. For more information and updates on the amendment, visit KansasCatholic.org.
Our bishops in Kansas have asked that all of our parishes sponsor signature drives, which are needed in order to introduce a constitutional amendment. On the weekend of October 5th and 6th, cards and sheets for signatures will be available in all the churches of our cluster. We will leave these petitions in the entry ways of our churches. Please encourage your non-Catholic friends and neighbors to stop in and sign them.
