The court sided in a 6-1 majority with the plaintiffs in the case, two physicians who performed the procedure, in a sweeping ruling that opens the door for abortion-rights activists to challenge a series of other restrictions that the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has enacted.
The Kansas case comes at a time of great change for abortion in the United States. Republican-controlled legislatures have chipped away at abortion rights, turning the tide in a broad swath of the country’s middle and the South: Six states are down to one abortion clinic.
And now, the math on the Supreme Court has changed with President Donald Trump’s choice of Brett Kavanaugh last year, and abortion rights advocates are worried that Roe v. Wade, the national 1973 ruling that provided federal protections for abortion, may soon be at risk.
At the heart of the Kansas decision is a 2015 law that would ban so-called dilation and evacuation procedures, a common method of abortion in the second trimester in which a physician uses surgical instruments and other equipment, such as suction devices, to take the fetus out of a woman’s uterus.
Kansas was the first state to pass such a law in 2015, said Elizabeth Nash, an abortion legislation expert at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. At least 11 other states have enacted similar bans, she said, though most have been blocked while making their way through the legal system. The bans are in effect in two states: Mississippi and West Virginia. The laws have been promoted by the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group that pushed back against the ruling Friday.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, called the ruling “horrendous,” and disputed the court’s conclusion that the constitution protected a woman’s right to an abortion.
Kansas is not the only state to have its law challenged. In Alabama, a similar law was blocked in several decisions, including one by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A trial court had temporarily blocked the law in Kansas, finding that the state constitution protected a right to abortion and, citing U.S. Supreme Court case law, that the ban would present an undue burden to women seeking one. After the state appeals court issued a split ruling, the question went before the Kansas Supreme Court.
The judges in Kansas blocked the law on the basis of the state constitution’s Bill of Rights, ruling that it “affords protection of the right of personal autonomy, which includes the ability to control one’s own body.” This extends, they ruled, to the decision of whether to have an abortion.
“This is the first time that the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that abortion rights are protected under the state constitution,” Nash said. “Nearly all of the abortion restrictions in the state, they could be challenged and struck down, with this ruling.
“It opens the door for abortion rights,” she added.
But, Nash said, the ruling could also cause a backlash in Kansas, a conservative state where abortion rights have dwindled in recent years. One possible result, she said, could be an effort by the anti-abortion movement to amend the state constitution so it no longer allows for such a defense. That has already happened in three states: Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Culp, of Kansans for Life, said her group intended to do just that.
“We plan to do everything in our power to amend the Kansas state Constitution to make it crystal clear that one cannot infer from it the right to an abortion that would throw out 45 years of pro-life legislation in Kansas,” she said.
The reaction to the ruling by Kansas political leaders was, unsurprisingly, sharply divided. The governor, Laura Kelly, a Democrat, quickly issued a statement applauding the decision.
“While federal law has long guaranteed every woman the right to make their own medical decisions in consultation with their health care providers,” she said, “I’m pleased that the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision now conclusively respects and recognizes that right under Kansas law as well.”
The state treasurer, Jake LaTurner, a Republican, issued his own statement calling the decision “an abomination” that marked “one of the darkest days in our state’s history.” He urged people to “continue to work taking our state back from these unelected, liberal judges who do not represent the will of the people of Kansas.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.