Health professional coalition seeks passage of Kansas abortion constitutional amendment – Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Advocates of an modification to the Kansas Structure declaring the state’s Invoice of Rights shouldn’t assure entry to abortion introduced Friday the formation of an alliance of well being professionals backing the August poll initiative.

The group of greater than 200 physicians, nurses, pharmacists and surgeons joined with Kansans for Life and different organizations to suggest approval of the modification reversing a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court docket resolution that outlined the precise to abortion in Kansas.

Lisa Gilbert, a doctor in Wichita, stated the state Supreme Court docket undermined the authorized basis for regulation of abortion within the state. The courtroom’s authorized commonplace didn’t remove state legal guidelines regulating abortion clinics, however established a proper to abortion within the state even when the U.S. Supreme Court docket reversed the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution.

“The courtroom decreed that just about any limitation or regulation on abortion are presumed unconstitutional,” stated Gilbert, who asserted the state courtroom’s motion made Kansas “a vacation spot for excessive abortions.”

The professional-amendment group included 120 physicians together with nurses, licensed psychotherapists and counselors.

Kelly Byrd, a Kansas Metropolis-based pediatrician, stated throughout a information convention the group of well being professionals got here collectively by way of a grassroots outreach course of. The group drafted an open letter praising the Worth Them Each Modification, which can be on the Aug. 2 main poll statewide.

“Passing the Worth Them Each Modification is important to returning our state to a spot the place the abortion business just isn’t left limitless or unregulated and shouldn’t be allowed to police itself,” Byrd stated.

Rejection of the modification would reinforce the state Supreme Court docket’s perception the structure shielded the precise to abortion from political assault by the Kansas Legislature. Adoption of the modification would affirm the Legislature was in control of figuring out the form of abortion regulation in Kansas, together with passage of payments banning or criminalizing performing or acquiring abortion companies.

The preliminary abortion statistical report from the Kansas Division of Well being and Surroundings documented 7,849 abortions in Kansas throughout 2021. That represented a 4.1% enhance over the 2020 complete.

The KDHE stated 85% of abortions in Kansas have been sought by single girls and 60% of ladies who acquired an abortion had given delivery to at the very least one baby. In 2021, seven out of 10 abortions in Kansas have been carried out inside 9 weeks of the being pregnant. No abortions in Kansas final 12 months have been carried out after 22 weeks of being pregnant.