Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Despite Kansas Drubbing, Anti-Abortion Activists Crank Up Plans to Make Abortion Illegal Everywhere
August 12, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
In his provocative 2004 New York Times bestselling book, “What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,”* Thomas Frank didn’t mince words, exploring the rise of populist anti-elitist conservatism, and the Democratic Party’s feeble response to addressing culture war issues. Some eighteen years after the book caused quite a stir, on Tuesday, August 2, the conservative inspired amendment to the Kansas constitution that could have led to the banning of all abortions, went down to a resounding defeat.
Activists on both sides of the abortion issue are gearing up for future battles over abortion rights. Pro-choice forces are asking whether the victorious Kansas campaign is a turning point in the culture wars, and whether it is a viable strategy for other campaigns. Anti-abortion activists are asking what’s next for the movement, in the streets, at the ballot box, in the courts and in state legislatures. One thing is clear, a "Post-Roe" generation of anti-abortion activists will keep fighting until abortions are illegal across the country.
In 2019, Kansas’s justices ruled that the Kansas Constitution includes abortion rights. Two justices that served on the court at that time -- Marla Luckert and Dan Biles -- who ruled in 2019 that the Kansas Constitution includes abortion rights will, along with six of the court’s seven justices, be up for retention in the November general election.
KCUR.org reported that Ashley All, a spokesperson for the Kansans for Constitutional Freedom group that led the charge against stripping abortion rights from the state constitution. “(Lawmakers) have not been deterred in the past, I don’t think that will change. I have no doubt that there will be additional bills put forward in the spring to limit access in other ways.”
While conservatives aren’t claiming that the election was stolen, they are pointing to what some in the movement are calling deceitful tactics by the No campaign. In the critiques by anti-abortion activists – mostly anecdotal -- that I’ve read, no one has mentioned the deceptive practices of anti-abortion groups surrounding the placing of the amendment on the August ballot; an election that usually has a low turnout.
Writing for the conservative evangelical World magazine, Eric Teetsel, former president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansa, argued: “Opponents deviously attacked the amendment with appeals to conservative voters, too. A statewide TV ad claimed that the amendment was a ‘government mandate’ that would lead to ‘more government control over medical decisions.’ ‘Kansans don’t want another government mandate’ the narrator says while the screen displays a sign requiring mask wearing due to COVID and a church sign reading ‘ALL MASSES CANCELLED.’”
“In the wake of the vote,” Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins reported, “Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, who publicly supported the amendment's passage, issued a statement Aug. 3 lamenting its failure. ‘We were not able to overcome the millions spent by the abortion industry to mislead Kansans about the amendment, nor the overwhelming bias of the secular press whose failure to report clearly on the true nature of the amendment served to advance the cause of the abortion industry,’ Naumann wrote.”
Naumann diocese and other Catholic organizations spent millions “representing the single largest donor base for the pro-amendment umbrella group known as the ‘Value Them Both’ campaign,” RNS noted.
Indiana Goes Anti-Abortion Balls To The Wall
Last week, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed legislation making the state the first in the nation to pass extreme abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Common Dreams Staff reported: (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/08/06/backsliding-democracy-indiana-governor-signs-extreme-abortion-ban-bill) “The ban, which takes effect Sept. 15, includes some exceptions. Abortions would be permitted in cases of rape and incest, before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
“Under the bill, abortions can be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. A doctor who performs an 'illegal' abortion or fails to file required reports would lose their medical license.”
As Politico’s Mathew Chapman recently reported, "The most fervently anti-abortion lawmakers are accusing their colleagues of capitulating on rape and incest exceptions, while those calling for compromise or moderation believe more strident Republicans are ignoring political realities," reported Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein. "Even as Indiana on Friday became the first to pass a new abortion ban since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, the state’s leading anti-abortion group said it was 'disappointed' lawmakers failed to remove rape and incest exceptions from the bill. A Republican state senator left his caucus in the heat of the debate on the bill, which he believed didn’t go far enough to ban the procedure. And the GOP House speaker chastised a Republican representative multiple times for suggesting his more moderate colleagues were condoning murder."
* In a 1896 newspaper editorial titled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” William Allen White criticized presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan’s populist program. The editorial, which was republished across the country, was credited with helping William McKinley win the presidential election. According to He later disavowed the editorial, and advocated for progressive reforms in regular columns in McClure’s Magazine.”
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