Demonstrators on both sides of the abortion issue stand outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, Oct. 15, 2022, in Kansas City, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
In Kansas, a new legal battle is now raging over abortion and privacy rights with significant ramifications that will go into effect this summer without any court intervention.
Starting July 1, a law known as HB 2749 will go into effect mandating that abortion providers in Kansas ask each patient prior to terminating their pregnancy what the “most important factor” was in their decision to seek an abortion, drawing from a set scripted list of prompts and without the option to give an open-ended answer such as “other.” It also forces doctors to compile their findings and submit them to the state twice a year for a public report. The bill was passed by state legislators by overriding a veto from Gov. Laura Kelly.
But abortion providers in the state are intent on fighting this latest addition to regulations around access to abortion health care in Kansas enacted under the Republican-backed Woman’s Right to Know Act. The so-called “survey requirement” is being challenged in a motion supplemented to an ongoing lawsuit filed in against Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach.
Kobach told the Kansas City Star, which first reported on the lawsuit, that he intends to fight the abortion providers’ “highly improper” amended petition and will ask the court that they file a separate case altogether.
In a supplemented motion, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains wrote:
Requiring providers to ask patients to justify their decision to seek abortion care by selecting from a list of intensely personal — and in some instances, pejoratively worded — ‘reasons,’ among other intrusive questions, invades patients’ fundamental right to personal autonomy.
Indeed, the chair of the House Committee on Health and Human Services, which sponsored H.B. 2749, stated regarding the bill: ‘We just want to have more information. Make sure we’re making the right decision for these women.’
Moreover, co-opting providers to make this inquiry on the State’s behalf compels them to alter the content of their speech.
Emil Wales, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said this week that this latest supplement to ongoing lawsuit was “simple” because its purpose reflects no agenda other than the people’s agenda in Kansas when voters cast their ballots in August 2022 to overwhelmingly reject a state constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
“Unlike the legislature, we actually listened when the people voted in August 2022. Kansans wants their medical decisions to be their own, and we will not shame or stigmatize patients to satisfy the cruel whims of anti-abortion politicians,” Wales said.
According to HB 2749, the following questions or reasons would be posed to patients:
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- Would having a baby interfere with the patient’s education, employment or career?
- Was the patient able to provide for the child?
- Does the patient already have enough, or too many, children
- Does the patient’s husband or partner want them to have an abortion?
- Does the patient lack enough child support from family or others to raise a child?
- Was the pregnancy the result of rape or incest?
- Does the pregnancy threaten the patient’s physical, mental or emotional health?
- Would the child have a disability?
These survey requirements would be added to existing restrictions and regulations around abortion in Kansas currently being challenged. Last October, a district court judge temporarily blocked laws for Kansas abortion providers that required them to provide patients with false claims about reversing medical abortions under the Woman’s Right to Know Act, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Patients in Kansas, until that injunction, were are also required to undergo a 24-hour waiting period after receiving that state-mandated information before obtaining an abortion, leading to delayed access to health care in already-time sensitive situations. Kansas appealed the ruling.
“The decision to have an abortion is deeply personal — no one should be forced to tell the government why they are making that decision. It’s frankly frightening that the state of Kansas is attempting to collect this type of private information, and unclear how it will be used. We are committed to protecting the privacy and constitutional rights of Kansans and people fleeing states where abortion is banned,” Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said this week.
For Republican legislators in the state however, the survey requirements is about “helping” women and they emphasize the questions are “voluntary.”
In April, Kansas House Majority Leader Chris Croft, Speaker of the Kansas House Dan Hawkins and Kansas House Speaker Pro Tempore Blake Carpenter celebrated their ability to walk back the governor’s veto.
“By overriding the Governor’s veto of this bill, voluntary and anonymous abortion data will now be made available to [the Kansas Department of Health and Environment] so they can have up-to-date and relevant information,” they said. “The Governor’s unreasonable fear of this data collection is nothing but a roadblock to helping serve these vulnerable women better.”
In addition to the Comprehensive Health Planned Parenthood Great Plains, plaintiffs include physicians Traci Lynn Nauser M.D., Tristan Fowler D.O., and their practice, Hodes & Nauser. The Center for Reproductive Rights, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and two law firms, Arnold & Porter and the Hunter Law Group, represent petitioners.
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