Biden celebrates abortion rights win in Kansas as Democrats see midterm message
President Joe Biden on Tuesday night celebrated the failure of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the right to an abortion in Kansas, a significant win for the abortion rights movement in the first popular vote on the issue in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Voters in Kansas turned out in record numbers to reject extreme efforts to amend the state constitution to take away a woman’s right to choose and open the door for a state-wide ban,” Biden said. “This vote makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.”
He used the vote to call on Congress to pass a law codifying Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that said there was a federal right to an abortion.
The White House has said they believe abortion rights will serve as a galvanizing issue for Democratic voters in the midterm elections— helping the party maintain its coalition of suburban voters that formed in response to the election of former President Donald Trump.
But while national Democrats have been quick to paint the Republican Party as extreme on abortion —emphasizing an effort among some national Republicans to institute a federal ban on abortion and laws like the one in Missouri where abortions are only permitted in medical emergencies— Biden remained quiet about the Kansas vote.
At a briefing last month, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she wouldn’t comment on specific elections.
“So the president has been very clear that Americans get their voices heard and take it to the ballot box,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is the way we’re going to see real change, that is how we can use our political power.”
The Democratic National Committee took partial credit for the amendment’s failure, saying the organization quietly provided resources to spur abortion rights voters to the polls.
“President Biden quietly leveraged his political network ahead of the August 2 election, with the DNC’s National Distributed Organizing team making about 30,000 phone calls and sending over 130,000 text messages to help turn out the vote against the ballot initiative,” said a DNC spokesperson.
The comments underscored Democratic concerns that the Republican-leaning Kansas may hand the abortion rights movement a loss in the first vote after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that pushed the decision on whether to allow abortions back to the states.
Instead, the party was rewarded when high turnout throughout the state resulted in a resounding victory for the abortion rights movement, maintaining Kansas’ status as a regional hub for a procedure that’s forbidden in many of its surrounding states.
The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed to this report.
