Kansas Republicans easily override Kelly vetoes, enacting new restrictions on abortions

Women seeking an abortion in Kansas will now be asked to disclose why they chose to have one under a new state law.

The Republican-controlled Legislature on Monday evening voted to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes on two anti-abortion laws that create additional guardrails around abortion just two years after residents overwhelmingly voted to affirm abortion rights in the state constitution.

One law requires health care providers to ask women their primary reason to seek an abortion, while another criminalizes coercing pregnant women into obtaining an abortion.

The Senate voted 27-10 and the House voted 84-41 to override the veto of a bill that asks women to disclose their reasoning for obtaining an abortion, but they would have the chance to opt out of the survey. Kansas now joins a majority of states requiring some form of abortion reporting.

The law mandates abortion providers to survey women, asking them to choose the most important reason for getting an abortion. Those reasons – crafted by the anti-abortion advocacy group Kansans for Life – include financial stress, rape, fetal disabilities, or the health of the mother as options. The survey does not include an “other” option, a point of contention for opponents.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment will compile the data into a report publicly released twice a year.

Supporters of the law say the data that would come from the abortion surveys would help lawmakers make future decisions regarding abortion care.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican, acknowledged that Kansans were opposed to additional restrictions on abortion, referencing a 2022 vote in which Kansans overwhelmingly voted down an amendment to the state’s constitution that would have restricted or banned abortion.

She said the Legislature has and will continue to respect those parameters “until that can be changed sometime in the future.”

“It’s important for public policy officials who make health decisions every day to make informed decisions,” Landwehr said. “In no way does the reporting in this bill restrict, prevent, or stop any woman from having an abortion.”

However opponents of the law said the procedure is unnecessary and invasive, only creating additional barriers for women wishing to undergo legal abortions. They say the option to decline the survey is not clearly laid out.

“As is often the case with legislation dealing with a woman’s right to choose, we want to make it vague and more difficult for that person making that difficult decision,” Sen. Pat Pettey, a Kansas City Democrat said. “I find this to be invasive and really disrespectful of those women who have decided to make this difficult decision to have an abortion.”

Legislators also voted 28-10 in the Senate and 85-40 in the House to override Kelly’s veto on a law that would make it a felony to coerce a woman into undergoing an abortion.

The legislation defined coercion as physical, legal, or financial threats to the mother’s well-being, the withholding of legal documents, and controlling access to medical care. The penalties would increase if the mother is underage and the father is above 18-years-old.

Kelly in her veto message said the law would “intrude upon private, often difficult conversations” with a person’s family, friends, and partner, but agreed no one should be forced into undergoing a medical procedure without their consent.

House GOP leadership said the Republican triumph over Kelly’s veto is also a victory for pregnant women. They say the law ensures abortion remains a choice for women, and is narrowly crafted to protect victims of sex trafficking who may be forced to undergo multiple abortions.

“The governor’s veto message falsely equates ‘concerned conversations’ to the strict requirements of what defines coercion in the bill,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Because coercing a woman to have an abortion when that is not her choice is always wrong, my colleagues and I are proud to stand together against abuses such as sex trafficking and sexual abuse that accompany abortion coercion and override Laura Kelly’s negligent veto.”

But opponents say the law does not go far enough to protect Kansas women. An earlier version of the bill sought to criminalize all forms of reproductive coercion – such as threatening to hurt a pregnant person if they do not carry a fetus to term – but that version of the bill eventually died.

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, said she would have supported the bill if the amendment stayed on. Instead, Sykes said, the law places the responsibility of ensuring reproductive freedom into the hands of the government who has “a long history of reproductive coercion,” referencing forced sterilization and other methods.

“This bill continues on that trend by allowing KS politicians to pick and choose when we think they’re being coerced,” she said.

Rep. Rebecca Schmoe, an Ottawa Republican who sponsored the bill, has spoken publicly about her experience being pressured by a doctor to abort her first child. She said the bill only ensures the decision to obtain an abortion remains a choice.

Schmoe, however, indicated she would push for a more inclusive version of the bill in the coming sessions, saying she is “already looking into domestic violence law to see if there’s room to protect women further.”

The Legislature last year overrode Kelly’s veto on three anti-abortion laws: one making it harder for abortion providers to access liability insurance. Another law requiring providers to inform patients that a common type of medication abortion is reversible – even though that is unproven – and one imposing criminal penalties on abortion providers if they do not provide care to infants “born alive” in an abortion.