In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court concluded that the Kansas Constitution grants a “natural right of personal autonomy, which includes the right to control one’s own body,” the judges wrote in the decision, noting that this can include “whether to continue a pregnancy.”
The judges further noted that “the state is prohibited from restricting that right unless it can show it is doing so to further a compelling government interest.”
“A graphic description of the D&E procedure referred to in S.B. 95 is not necessary to resolving the legal issues before us,” the judges noted in their decision.
Dissenting Justice Caleb Stegall criticized the decision, saying that “it fundamentally alters the structure of our government to magnify the power of the state” and “paints the interest in unborn life championed by millions of Kansans as rooted in an ugly prejudice.”
The case was sent to a district court that found there were no “reasonable” alternatives to dismemberment abortion, and the state Supreme Court upheld that decision.
“Adding insult to injury, extremely liberal judges of the Kansas Supreme Court have now overturned basic health and safety standards for abortion facilities when one of the state’s largest abortion franchises recently operated for an unknown period of time with no medical oversight,” Danielle Underwood, Kansans for Life director of communications, said in a July 5 statement.