A Kansas judge on Wednesday stopped enforcement of legislation that prohibited doctors from prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine in the state.
Shawnee County district court judge Teresa Watson granted a Wichita reproductive center’s petition to block the law. Watson originally rejected the plaintiff’s request for a temporary injunction when first asked to rule on it. However, after an appeals court in June concluded that she erred in her decision and “diverged from well-established Kansas caselaw,” Watson agreed to suspend implementation of the law, according to a court filing.
“This decision will further open up abortion care in Kansas at a time it’s urgently needed,” Nancy Northup — the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, the organization which leveled the litigation — said in a statement.
“In this post-Roe world, telemedicine can make the difference in being able to receive abortion care or not,” Northup added. “Today’s decision paves the way for Kansas abortion clinics to expand services to women in remote, underserved areas of Kansas.”
In October, the Washington Post reported on “the rise of a covert, international network delivering tens of thousands of abortion pills” to states where abortion is illegal.
In an August referendum, Kansas voters adopted a sweeping abortion-protective constitutional amendment by popular vote in an unexpected upset to the pro-life movement in the historically conservative state. The “Value Them Both” proposition failed, with nearly two-thirds of voters rejecting the measure.
In 2019, the Kansas supreme court determined that the state’s constitution, when it was chartered in 1859, had created a “fundamental” right to abortion through a provision similar to the opening proposition of the Declaration of Independence: “All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The court decided that the constitution, therefore, did not permit statutes generally banning the most common second-trimester abortion procedure (dilation and evacuation) in which the fetus is dismembered in the womb.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the fight for abortion access has taken place at the state level. On Wednesday, pro-life advocates clinched a small victory in Georgia, where the state Supreme Court temporarily reinstated legislation that prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.