LEAWOOD: Campaign signs dot the tree-lined streets of the affluent Kansas town of Leawood, as the Midwestern state prepares to hold the first major vote on abortion since the US Supreme Court ended the national right to the procedure.

Kansans head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to change the traditionally conservative state’s constitution to remove language guaranteeing the right to an abortion.

Those in favor of the change — “Yes” voters — say it would allow legislators to regulate the procedure without judicial interference.

“It just simply restores our ability to have a conversation,” says Mackenzie Haddix, a spokeswoman for the Value Them Both campaign seeking an end to the protections -- which stem from a 2019 decision by the Kansas supreme court.

“The people of Kansas can then come together... to reach consensus,” she said at a rally Saturday morning. Banning abortion is not the official goal of Value Them Both.

But in the opposing camp, activists see the campaign as a barely-masked bid to clear the way for an outright ban by the Republican-dominated state legislature — following in the footsteps of at least eight other US states since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June.

Advocates look nervously to neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri which have implemented near-total bans — the latter making no exceptions for rape or incest — while fellow Midwestern state Indiana passed its own rigid ban on Saturday.

And in Kansas itself, a conservative state legislator this year introduced a bill that would ban abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother, while a state senator was quoted as telling supporters he ultimately hopes to enact a law on “life starting at conception.” Currently, abortion is legal in Kansas up to 22 weeks, with parental consent required for minors.

“It really does come down to the amendment taking away that right to personal autonomy that all Kansans enjoy,” Ashley All, a spokeswoman for the “No” campaign Kansans for Constitutional Freedom (KCF), said.

“And it is a right that we are able to make decisions about our bodies, about our families, about our future, without government interference,” she said.

The vote, scheduled to coincide with primary elections in Kansas, will be the first chance for US voters to register their views on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2022