KC Council says abortion is a human right, could reimburse travel and care costs for staff

Criminalizing reproductive rights will perpetuate an unjust system and compound racial disparities in health, Kansas City Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw said, as the council approved two pieces of legislation Thursday to support those rights.

“The system has been failing us for years,” Parks-Shaw, District 5, said.

The first ordinance, which passed 10-2 during Thursday’s meeting, could reimburse city employees for health care-related travel expenses outside of Kansas City. Councilmembers Heather Hall, District 1, and Dan Fowler, District 2, voted no.

The council also unanimously passed a resolution declaring reproductive rights are human rights. Both were passed through the same-day adoption process, which requires a supermajority of votes.

Kansas City leaders voted on the abortion-related legislation six days after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion and Missouri’s trigger ban went into effect.

Abortion, Parks-Shaw said, is an essential part of health care. And it impacts the health of mothers and babies. A 2021 study found an abortion ban would lead to a rise in pregnancy-related deaths

As of last year, nine Black babies in Kansas City died for every three white infants, according to the Kansas City Health Department. Nationally, Black mothers are three times more likely to die than white mothers from pregnancy or birth complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“That’s how systemic racism works,” Parks-Shaw said. “Directly or indirectly, explicitly or not. It results in policies or institutional structures that hurt Black and brown people, and those who live in low income areas, perpetuating and increasing inequities that began with importations of Black people to America as slaves back in 1619 and continues to persist to this day.”

City employees’ health coverage

The legislation approved Thursday directs City Manager Brian Platt to negotiate on the city’s insurance plans. The Healthcare System Board of Trustees, which controls the health care benefits of city employees, will then make its own recommendations. Any changes will require additional approval from the City Council.

The legislation does not provide an exact dollar amount that would be available to employees. Instead, they could be reimbursed for travel costs for health care outside city limits once a year as “recent impediments have been imposed to accessing complete, comprehensive reproductive health care.”

Nearly all abortion is banned in Missouri following the U.S. Supreme Court opinion last week overturning the federal right to abortion established by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Missouri’s ban does not include exceptions for rape or incest, but does for medical emergencies. Many Missourians travel to Kansas to receive an abortion, making up 44% of all abortions performed in the state in 2021.

Only one clinic in Missouri — Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the Saint Louis Region — was providing abortion services prior to the enactment of the ban.

There are two clinics near Kansas City on the other side of the state line, both in Overland Park.

Kansas voters will decide in August to amend the state constitution to allow state legislators to approve a ban.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said that election is where the sense of urgency comes in, as employees may not have access to care near the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Lucas said the city is working to ensure employees still have that access.

“It’s important that we stand for a woman’s right to choose access to care and make sure that our employees continue to have the same access to reproductive health, because I think it is vital to health, and we make sure that they have that no matter what happens in Missouri, or even in Kansas five weeks from now,” Lucas said ahead of the meeting.

The ordinance specifies that it won’t be paid for by taxpayer-generated funds, such as the city’s general revenue.

Fowler, who voted against the ordinance, said he wanted to see it be heard in a council committee first. Hall, who was also a no vote, said she believes the city already provides great coverage for employees.

“I just believe that the local government needs to stay out of private medical decisions,” Hall said.

Lucas said he hopes Kansas City can set an example for other regional leaders.

Kansas City’s move follows an ordinance introduced in St. Louis last week that would use federal COVID-19 relief funds for a $1 million “Reproductive Equity Fund.” Those funds would be used for logistical support such as travel; the money would not fund abortion procedures.

The St. Louis legislation, unlike Kansas City’s, is not restricted to only city employees.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said the city expects to be sued.

Lucas said the way Kansas City’s legislation was written does not “welcome a legal challenge.”

The new benefit does not go into effect immediately. Lucas said it begins with negotiation with the Healthcare System Board of Trustees. Then, open enrollment could be expanded.

“I hope more than anything, though, that it’s a model and a sign to women in Kansas City and our entire region, that no matter what changes in the state legislature or in the state house, that we will continue to make sure that we’re standing up for access to quality reproductive care and safe reproductive care,” Lucas said. “That’s why we’re taking these steps today.”

‘Form of discrimination’

The resolution City Council approved says that, “reproductive rights are fundamental human rights and criminalizing access to reproductive rights is a form of discrimination against women, girls and others who can become pregnant.”

Hall was absent during the 11-0 vote on the resolution.

Councilman Kevin O’Neill, District 1 at-large, said he supported the resolution.

“I think the problem we have in America is that men aren’t held accountable for women getting pregnant,” O’Neill said. “All the onus is on the woman. Until we find a way to put everybody in the same responsibility package, I think it’s difficult to say that only the woman is going to suffer for this.”

Councilman Eric Bunch, District 4, said that men “need to stop getting in between a woman’s health care decisions and her doctor.” And while the resolution is mostly symbolic, Bunch added, it’s important for the city to say that it supports women and their access to care.

Fowler, who said he is Roman Catholic and is adopted, said that if the right to abortion existed in 1954, he may not be here today. Fowler said his morals tell him that a healthy mother should carry a healthy child to term and if that child shouldn’t be with that family, the child should be given to another. However, he said, that’s not always the case.

“I don’t know where the line is. I’m not going to stand here and pretend I know where the line is,” Fowler said. “What I’ve come down to in reconciling in my own mind is one thing that I do know: And that is, it ain’t my business to tell somebody else what to do. I can only live by my own moral compass.”