Kansas
Capitol Update: Rep. Jarrod Ousley says Kansas’s Free State roots include ‘right to control one’s body’
Every week throughout the 2022 Kansas legislative session, we are going to present Shawnee Mission space legislators the chance to share their ideas about what’s taking place within the state capitol.
Under is that this week’s submission from Democratic Rep. Jarrod Ousley Woodard of Kansas Home District 24, which covers Merriam and elements of Mission and Overland Park.
Republican Rep. Owen Donohoe and Democratic Rep. Dan Osman had been additionally given the possibility to submit columns this week.
The views expressed in every Capitol Replace are solely these of the lawmaker and will not be reflective of the Submit’s place on any matter mentioned.
With the top of the legislative session right here, and the August 2, 2022, particular election simply across the nook, my spouse and I’ve had a number of discussions on what’s at stake for the ladies of Kansas, and for Kansas itself.
John Brown was maybe one in every of most infamous founding fathers. However his friendships with leaders within the abolitionist motion, together with Frederick Douglass, reveal him as a deeply ethical and good strategist. Douglass in contrast John Brown to Patrick Henry, who gave the well-known, “Give me liberty or give me demise speech” however distinguished him as such: “Henry beloved liberty for the wealthy and the good; Brown beloved liberty for the poor and the weak.”
Many people know the story of our Free State roots and the battle for the soul of Kansas. The town of Lawrence was sacked and burned throughout Quantrill’s raid and 190 Free Staters killed. After this tragedy and dueling constitutions, Kansas lastly entered the Union as a Free State.
Our structure was written by abolitionists and Clarina Nichols, a suffragist and Free Stater. They positioned the invoice of rights at the start of the doc, indicating that the rights of particular person Kansans outdated the authority of the State and that the State should govern to that purpose.
Our Kansas Structure as handed included three founding rules:
- Kansas can be a free state, with every individual having possession over themselves;
- rights for girls, as Clarina was profitable in gaining property rights for girls;
- and a constitutional proper to an schooling supplied by the State.
Our founders fought and died in order that Kansans can be free, so each Kansan would personal themselves, and they might be educated.
The measure on the poll on August 2 strips the flexibility to manage one’s personal physique from half of our residents, giving that energy to the Kansas Legislature. It is a full reversal of our founding rules.
If the constitutional modification just isn’t defeated, a Home Invoice has already been pre-filed, HB 2746, offering that life begins on the time of fertilization, defining “dwelling human little one from the second of fertilization.”
It supplies for less than three terribly slender exceptions for a authorized abortion: to take away a useless fetus, to save lots of the lifetime of an unborn little one (within the occasion of multiples) and within the occasion of an ectopic being pregnant that “severely” threatens the lifetime of the mom.
These are the one exceptions.
There are not any exceptions for different critical threats to the mom, equivalent to pre-eclampsia, placental abruption, sepsis, an underdeveloped younger mom (equivalent to little one whose physique just isn’t but developed sufficient to securely ship) or different antagonistic issues equivalent to liver or coronary heart situations of the mom, most cancers to the mom, diabetes threat components, and so forth.
And there are not any exceptions for rape.
Ought to this invoice turn into legislation, your daughters, sisters, associates and wives could possibly be raped and compelled to hold to time period the rapist’s child, and compelled to cope with the specter of harassment from their abuser for the lifetime of their little one. Yearly, greater than a thousand Kansas ladies and kids are raped. The extra trauma and ache this modification would trigger them is unimaginable.
“The second of conception” bars entry to morning after drugs, to in-vitro fertilization and would create the suspicion of a possible crime for every miscarriage a lady experiences.
Violations of this invoice are felonies. For the lady, the supplier and anybody who maybe conspired to the fee of the “underlying crime.”
In case your daughter is raped, and also you try to provide her help, you, your daughter and her medical supplier will all be felons.
In case your daughter has a medical situation that places her well being at grave threat or that might kill her, there isn’t a exception within the legislation. And as soon as once more, you, your daughter and her medical supplier will all be felons in the event you act to save lots of her life.
On August 2, Vote “No” to maintain the legislature out of your beloved’s medical care, and to safeguard the unique intention of our structure, that each Kansan ought to management their very own physique.
Kansans deserve the fitting to make these personal, medical choices for themselves – free from authorities interference. Ceaselessly the Free State.
As all the time, it’s my privilege to serve my constituents in Home District 24. I could be reached at jarrod.ousley@home.ks.gov at 785-296-7366 and on Fb right here.