Kansas Court Blocks Key Abortion Restrictions

A Kansas District Court judge blocked several abortion restrictions on Monday including a mandated 24-hour waiting period, and a recently enacted measure that would have required physicians to inform patients about “abortion reversal.” 

For context, so-called “abortion reversal,” which supposedly stops a medication abortion that is already in progress, has been labeled “unproved and unethical” by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In his ruling, Judge Krishnan Christopher Jayaram wrote: “In this case, the preliminary record before the Court demonstrates that the provisions at issue invade and unconstitutionally infringe upon Kansans’ fundamental rights under Section 1 and 11 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights.”

Jayaram also said that the restrictions appear “to be a thinly-veiled effort to stigmatize the procedure and instill fear in patients that are contemplating an abortion, such that they make an alternative choice, based upon disproven and unsupportable claims.”

The lawsuit against these restrictions was filed in June by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood on behalf of abortion providers in Kansas, arguing that the restrictions violated the state constitution. 

“This victory is a rebuke of misinformation and a win for supporters of reproductive rights everywhere,” Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement on Monday. 

This latest win for abortion advocates follows another significant reproductive rights victory in August 2022, when Kansas voters rejected a proposed amendment that would have allowed state legislature to ban abortion without exception. 

In a statement, Danielle Underwood, Communications Director of Kansans for Life, an anti-abortion group, called Monday’s ruling a “nightmare for women and a dream come true for the profit-driven abortion industry.” 

“Women will pay the price for the deceitful practices of the abortion industry that consistently puts its own profits above all else,” she added. 

The court is temporarily blocking these laws until the case’s June 2024 trial.