Kansans’ abortion rights are back on the ballot in November’s presidential election | Opinion

Abortion rights in Kansas are safe.

Again.

For now. Until November, anyway.

You probably remember the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 decision declaring that abortion access is protected under the state constitution. And you almost certainly remember 2022, when voters statewide overwhelmingly rejected the “Value Them Both” constitutional amendment that would have given conservative legislators a pathway to end reproductive rights in the Sunflower State.

Good stuff. But the fight to preserve abortion rights in Kansas — and anywhere in the United States — never, ever ends.

That’s why the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday issued a new ruling, this time setting aside a request from anti-abortion rights forces to pretty please reconsider that earlier decision to let the Kansas Legislature pass sweeping new restrictions that would make it much, much more difficult for women to obtain an abortion here.

The Kansas Constitution still protects the right to an abortion, justices said.

“We stand by our conclusion that section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights protects a fundamental right to personal autonomy,” Justice Eric Rosen wrote for the majority, “which includes a pregnant person’s right to terminate a pregnancy.”

And that’s that, right?

Well, no. Not really.

Here is what I wrote right after the 2022 vote: “There is no reason to believe that pro-life activists in Kansas will simply accept the will of the voters — no matter how clearly expressed — and move on.”

That’s still true, obviously.

And it creates a paradox. The right to an abortion in Kansas has perhaps never been so firmly entrenched in the law and in citizen expectations as it is now. But also: The right to an abortion in Kansas — and all across the United States — has never been so threatened and vulnerable.

Here’s the good news: Kansas voters still have a say in what happens next.

Project 2025 and the Comstock Act

If you haven’t heard about Project 2025 by now, you should. It’s a 900-page document from the right-wing Heritage Foundation that lays out a governing agenda for the next Republican president.

Project 2025 takes dead aim at abortion rights. In a second Donald Trump administration, Politico reported in February, executive branch officials would revive the long-dormant Comstock Act from the 1870s to end access to abortion pills, while also targeting “medical equipment used for abortions and other procedures, and allowing criminal prosecutions of both providers sending the drugs and patients receiving them.

“Even people who think they’re safe because they live in blue states would lose access should that happen.” said one Democratic expert.

Kansas — for the purposes of abortion, anyway — is currently a blue state in this scenario.

A couple of admissions up front: Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, probably because it lays bare the authoritarian ambitions of his right-wing allies if they get ahold of the White House again. And it’s also true that he’s trying to rewrite the GOP platform to eliminate the party’s longstanding promise of a national abortion ban.

I don’t believe him.

There are two reasons for that. First, Project 2025 was put together by a group of conservative folks who mostly served in the first Trump administration and would likely be senior staffers the second time around. “Personnel is policy,” as they say, and this group has anti-abortion rights policy uppermost in mind.

Second: Trump’s own track record. He appointed the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Which makes him the man who almost single-handedly — we also have Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to thank — ended the right to an abortion in the United States.

Do you really trust him to suddenly protect reproductive rights if he wins election again? I certainly don’t.

Which means the same Kansas voters who so loudly defended abortion rights two years ago would probably undo that stand — and the repeated rulings of the Kansas Supreme Court — by handing the state’s Electoral College votes to Trump and the GOP in November.

That’s what everybody expects. That’s what has always happened. If Kansans really meant what they said in 2022, though, they will have to make a different choice this time around. The fight is never over.

Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.