(New York) The date is suspect, as is the type of ballot. At least, in the eyes of abortion rights advocates in Kansas.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
On August 2, in the midst of a scorching summer, voters in this rural Midwestern state will be called to an abortion referendum, the first of its kind in the United States, in a primary, go elections where voter turnout is usually low.
“It is elected officials and extremist militants who imposed this date in order to limit the number of voters, thinking that it would help their cause”, denounced to The Press Ashley All, spokesperson for the group Kansans for Constitutional Freedom. “We had fought for the referendum to take place in November, on the occasion of the general elections. »
Nevertheless: the election on August 2 will attract the attention of the whole country. This will be the first time since the repeal of the judgment Roe v. wade by the Supreme Court on June 24, that voters will have the chance to express themselves on abortion.
Those in Kansas obviously won’t be the last to do so. Other votes will take place in November, which could lead to the abolition of abortion. This will notably be the case for the gubernatorial elections of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, among others.
In Kansas, voters are being asked to vote on an amendment that would change the state constitution to say it does not guarantee the right to abortion. According to a recent poll, those most likely to participate in the primaries are very divided on the issue.
PHOTO GABRIELLA BORTER, REUTERS
Leaflets in favor of an amendment to the Kansas Constitution to no longer guarantee the right to abortion distributed by the group Students for Life in the streets of Lenexa.
Fast Fact: A constitutional amendment is needed to abolish abortion in Kansas following a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling that the Sunflower State Bill of Rights “protects the right to a woman to decide whether or not to continue with a pregnancy.
This bill of rights represented an even stronger protection of the right of Kansas women to abortion than that conferred by the judgment. Roe v. wade.
That said, the proponents of the constitutional amendment refuse to acknowledge that a “yes” to the referendum question will automatically lead to the abolition of the right to abortion in Kansas.
“You don’t want to put the cart before the horse and say something that in the end isn’t going to happen,” said Dan Hawkins, leader of the Kansas House of Representatives Republicans.
This kind of statement prompts pro-choice activists in Kansas to accuse their opponents of running a “misleading” campaign.
Republican congressmen, who control the two chambers in Kansas, have already tabled a bill to ban abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of incest, rape, or when the life of the mother is in danger.
Ashley All, spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom
“We don’t need a lot of imagination to know where the adoption of the constitutional amendment would take us,” added the one whose group is leading the “no” campaign in Kansas.
The organization Value Them Both, which orchestrates the “yes” campaign, did not respond to an interview request from The Press.
The Republican stranglehold on both houses of the Kansas Parliament demonstrates the state’s conservatism. But Kansas is still not Texas. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, serves as the state’s governor. She says she opposes “regressive measures that interfere with individual freedoms”.
So she promised to veto a law banning abortion in her state. One of the questions is whether she will be re-elected in November.
Ashley All thinks the abortion issue will help her.
Potential surprise at the polls
“The vast majority of Kansas voters support women’s access to abortion,” she said in a phone interview. “They don’t want the government interfering with our private medical decisions. »
In fact, according to a poll released in late 2021 by Fort Hays State University, 62% of Kansas voters believe that women “are better placed” than politicians to make the decision to have an abortion or nope.
However, according to a survey of voters most likely to participate in the Republican and Democratic primaries on August 2, 47% of respondents support the constitutional amendment, against 43% who oppose it. The margin of error for this survey is 2.7%.
But the repeal of the judgment Roe v. wade will perhaps bring to the polls an electorate that will surprise the pollsters.
“The Supreme Court’s decision was a wake-up call to many moderate Kansas voters who thought abortion was federally protected,” Ashley All said.
One thing is certain, the result of the referendum will not affect only the women of Kansas. It will also be of interest to women from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri, among others, who these days travel to that state to terminate their pregnancies after abortion was abolished in their own state.