Courts were wrong about abortions. Overturn them | Commentary

In the spring of 2015, bipartisan super-majorities in the Kansas Legislature passed a law protecting unborn children from a particularly gruesome abortion procedure.

Without going into full detail, the procedure involves pulling the child from the mother limb by limb.

Somewhat predictably, two Kansas abortionists sued to stop the law.

The case went before a judge called Larry Hendricks, an appointee of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Hendricks found something no one had ever found before: A right to abortion in the Kansas Constitution.

But it gets worse.

This is the provision of the Kansas Constitution which he claimed guarantees abortion:

All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That’s it. That’s the provision.

We lost our right to protect the unborn in Kansas because a judge decided that the Constitution’s right to life meant you couldn’t pass a law protecting the right to life.

A 7-7 split in the Kansas Court of Appeals meant the lower court injunction stood.

The Kansas Supreme Court eventually struck down the dismemberment ban using the same shocking reasoning as the district court.

This shouldn’t need to be said, but the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn’t mean doing whatever we want to whoever we want to do it to.

Many of our most basic laws restrict one person’s decisions in order to protect others. Laws against child abuse are one such example.

Our system has failed us on this issue. Badly.

After nearly 50 years of the federal courts taking away our right to protect the unborn as we see fit, will the state courts sentence Kansans to another half century of the same?

Perhaps (which would be an outcome of unspeakable tragedy), but this time we have a way to make it right.

Since nearly 80% of the legislature agrees on the issue, they voted to add language to the constitution.

The “Value Them Both” amendment is simple.

It says abortion is not guaranteed in the state Constitution — which of course it isn’t — and that our representatives will have authority to protect the unborn — which of course they do.

They get that power from us.

The amendment doesn’t say what laws will be made, only that our representatives, with the support of the voters, can decide.

A “Yes” vote on the Value Them Both Amendment allows us to fix a terrible court decision — and not after suffering under it for 49 years.

This amendment is our best tool to take a piece of our rightful power back from rogue courts and protect the most basic of all rights.

Joseph Ashby is a former talk radio host and congressional candidate